Science Shepherd Labs

[LovinHS]

I recently bought the Science Shepherd Biology text & companion - they look really wonderful. I am not sure what to do for the labs - hands-on, the DVD, or a combination.

 

Which did you use? It seems like doing the lab & also watching the DVD may be a bit much? Ds says he does not want to do any of the dissections, which looks like make up a fair portion of the labs. Can you really learn enough from just watching it on DVD - is that enough to be considered a high school lab course?

 

Thanks!

Kathy

[Rhonda in TX]

Am I the only girl that loved dissection? The only thing I ever dissected was a pig and it was incredible. That first cut was kind of hard, but then it was just fascinating. I was a 10th grader. My female lab partner refused to have anything to do with the whole process, so I did it all.

[LovinHS]

Am I the only girl that loved dissection? The only thing I ever dissected was a pig and it was incredible. That first cut was kind of hard, but then it was just fascinating. I was a 10th grader. My female lab partner refused to have anything to do with the whole process, so I did it all.

 

No - I actually did as well, and so did my daughter! Maybe this is actually a "guy thing" :tongue_smilie:

 

I'm not too surprised about my ds with this though, when we did plant experiments a few year ago, like depriving them of light or water he had a hard time doing that too because he knew they would die...

[kroe1]

We will not be doing any cutting on animals in our house. But here's a resource from PETA for alternatives

 

http://www.peta2.com/takecharge/pdf/NALMlist.pdf

 

This should help all the squeamish moms and students.

 

:)

[arstephia]

Using Digital Frog or Froguts would definitely make the hands-on element credit worthy. The point of the dissection is to get a feel for the insides of the animal and you don't need the smell of formaldehyde to do that. A lot of schools are going with virtual dissection for sake of costs and time. Landry Academy is also using Shepherd Biology and I know they use virtual dissections as well. If you wanted your child do actually do the cutting of an animal, they encourage you to attend a 2 day Intensive course, but it isn't necessary. The virtual dissections are adequate for lab credit.

[LovinHS]

We will not be doing any cutting on animals in our house. But here's a resource from PETA for alternatives

 

http://www.peta2.com/takecharge/pdf/NALMlist.pdf

 

This should help all the squeamish moms and students.

 

:)

 

This is a wonderful resouce - Thank you!

[LovinHS]

Using Digital Frog or Froguts would definitely make the hands-on element credit worthy. The point of the dissection is to get a feel for the insides of the animal and you don't need the smell of formaldehyde to do that.

 

Thank you for this reminder. It's easy to get so caught up in details of "what" to use because you think you are supposed to do something, and forget to focus on the real purpose behind it.:001_unsure:

[Alphabetika]

Am I the only girl that loved dissection? The only thing I ever dissected was a pig and it was incredible. That first cut was kind of hard, but then it was just fascinating. I was a 10th grader. My female lab partner refused to have anything to do with the whole process, so I did it all.

 

I loved dissections, too. I did them in both high school and college. My dear friend,who was my lab partner in college, still talks about how I could dissect the cat with one hand and eat peanut MnM's with the other. She, like your partner, didn't participate in the actual cutting. :tongue_smilie:

 

Fast forward to homeschooling - one of the moms in our HS group led a fetal pig dissection in our backyard, and I have many photos of my middle dd, about 6yo at the time, with her own pig. My oldest loves dissections so much that she once volunteered to help a friend who teaches middle school science on pig dissection day. She helped with about 40 pigs!

 

So, no, you're not the only one!