In high school biology classes, why do they dissect real animals?

Question

I understand that they want the students to understand how the body works, but they don't have to kill hundreds of animals every year for that.
If you go to http://www.froguts.com/ there is a great computer program where you can virtually dissect animals, including frogs and pigs (the most common high school dissection animals). This doesn't harm any animals and shows you the same stuff the real thing would!
Why don't all schools use this? It would cost less than buying new animals every year.

Answer 1

It may not cost the school district less. First they would have to set up the computers to use for it, next the entire district has to agree to it, then the teachers all have to learn to use the program.
Dissecting animals is the beginning for many scientists to learn how real research is done. Virtual programs are very limited. Research has to find out what happens when certain chemicals are used for a particular purpose. No virtual program can tell you what will actually happen when the drug is administered.
Physicians must begin learning on animals, then move to deceased humans which are donated to medical schools. They'll never make the first cut if it isn't on an animal first.

I couldn't do the two I was supposed to do myself. I was so unable to do it I froze. The teacher watched me for quite a while, then finally came over and did the first incisions for me. I could only move any of the organs with some kind of probe. I couldn't make any other cuts, either. So, I'm an artist not a doctor. I'm good at that.

Answer 2

A virtual simulation is nothing like actually dissecting an animal. Virtual simulations must remove some of the randomness that occurs when dissecting a real animal. Every real animal looks different and is slightly different when you dissect. A simulation could never show what dissecting an animal is really like. Textbooks are sort of the same way. A diagram in a textbook came from real data, but is cleaned up considerably and you lose a lot of the science that went into formulating any point that you see in your classroom. Doing virtual dissections would only allow so much learning to occur. Real dissection is important and as for people who like it doing it later on, why should someone who thinks they like virtual dissection keep going only to find out they can't actually cut a real animal open.

Answer 3

Sometimes, I think soceity just does something because that the way it always has been done. Actual dissection may have been done in the past but now there are websites, as you have mentioned, that will teach you as much as an actual dissection. As a biology major, I wish that I could have opted for a computer learning session, rather than the real thing. For an actual dissection, you are exposed to formaldhye, a known carcinogen. Also the animals are subjected to a cruel death. Frogs are caught and immersed in formalin where they basically drown in formalin. I am glad that there are people like you in the world who question the senselessness of school hands on dissection. I also maintian that this is not teaching respect for living creatures. Have they asked you to pith a frog yet? That I refused to do.

Answer 4

Because computer programs and videos can't give you *feel* for what an organism is really like. It's not just "that's the spleen, that's the liver", etc. it's showing you how the spleen is *attached* to the liver, or how the heart and lungs are packed in in relation to each other, or what things are attached by membranes to other parts while others are loose and easily removed, what things are hard, what things are soft, what things are rough and bumpy, and what things are smooth or slimy. E.g. in a computer sim. or a video, the kidneys look like little bags like the bladder, but it can be surprising to note that the kidneys are hard ... they are full of dense cells. Or how the kidneys are harder than the liver.

These are all little subconscious things that are important to really understanding how a life form works. It removes the abstraction, the detachment.

Yeah, it's a little gross ... but I can tell you that the little frog dissection I did in 7th grade, *to this day* affects how I understand anatomical drawings of *any* species (including humans). They aren't just "parts", they all have relationships *to each other*.

Answer 5

The virtual dissections simply are not a replacement for hands-on experience.

To use a metaphor: you can learn to make vol-au-vents by reading a recipe and looking at pictures, or you can learn to make vol-au-vents by having your Grandma teach you in the kitchen. The result is the same: you've learned to make vol-au-vents, but the process is very different.

Most people will learn much more quickly, more deeply, more permanently and just more with a hands-on lesson. Dissection is like that: not only does the student learn information like the location of the organs, but learns the process of using a scalpel, learns to overcome challenges, learns to work cooperatively, and come on... it's just cool to hold a heart in your hand!

Answer 6

you're not looking at it the right way, you should shift your focus. food is not the only use for an animal that has died (plenty of school use animals that have died of natural causes so they're not being killed for you). this animal cannot be eaten, well usually, so other uses can be found. like you cutting it open to learn from it. you can see the anatomy, which is quite diffrent in real life compared to the pictures they show you in your text books. sure you can look at online pics and stuff, but it's still not the same... if i were you i would just do the disection, respect the animal you're working on and recognize that as your using it's corpse you're learning some things you cannot learn from either a textbook or the internet!

Answer 7

Yeah, in high school using real animals is bullshit; most of the students don't care/are grossed out/opposed to it. Those who are interested will undoubtably do more dissection at the university level when they will actually remember and understand. But for scientists/vets/doctors in training, real animals are necessary; everything is different in 3D and using your hands.

Answer 8

To prepare u to discect some more things in college (pigs)
First of some of the animals are already dead or sick. those are the ones we dissect, we eat the rest!

Answer 9

apart from a lamb that died in utero, I have never gotten my students to dissect whole animals...only parts from an abboitoir...so they were already dead.
But I guess its different where you are.
Also I bet you would remember the actualy dissection as opposed to doing the "virtual" one better!!! You remember extremes better than ambilivent things.
I'm sure there are too many frogs anyway.....

Answer 10

to learn more about the organs and everything else in it.... but you can always do a virtual dissection if you want to. but its just not exciting as the real one..