Today was the last day of "real" school. No school tomorrow or Monday and next week is 2 1/2 days of field day, and celebrations, then summer break. So every end of the year I plan something totally cool for the kids to do to keep them engaged as long as possible. For my 7th graders taking life science it was dissection of pregnant rats. This has evolved over many years and hundreds of dissections. Ask any adult what they remember about middle school science and they'll say, "ooh, we dissected _____ (fill in the blank with frogs, worms, sheep eyes, pig heart)". Well me always wanting to take it up a notch went for pregnant rats. So today I spent 5 hours dissecting pregnant rats. Let me tell you that the coolness does wear off and then it just becomes gross, but to watch every 7th grader talk about it and oooh and aaah is priceless. This week we had close to perfect attendance for our 7th graders and if you only knew what our attendance usually is you would be thoroughly impressed. For the first time ever in six years of dissecting I actually had a student throw up. He was so great and tried so hard. He would leave, barf, and then come back for more, barf and return. What a champ!
p.s. the sausage looking thing in the rat is uterus with the babies!
1 comment:
Wow, that is cool. We just did a boring frog when I was in school. I wish you had been a teacher back then :)
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