Dissections
For these dissections, I worked with my pardner Sterling Reead. Prior to and after each dissection we would discuss the ecology and characteristics of each organism we dissected in a Google Doc. You can find those here. A spreadsheet of the traits and characteristics of these animals is available here. I will also link the lab guides in the columns below.
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SpongeDissecting the sponge was simple. You could easily see their functional structures. We cut off a piece of sponge and examined the external structure then sliced the exterior so we could see what would on the inside
EarthwormThe earthworm is more complex than you would think. It has complete digestive and circulatory systems. We cut through the length of the worm to see these. The arches of the heart were easy to find, as was the intestine filled with dirt
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JellyfishWe looked at the jellyfish beneath a dissecting scope. You could see how simple cnidaria are. The most noticeable organ is the gonads in the jellyfish. They are the four large, peach-colored irregular shapes
PerchWe examined this fish as careful as we could, but still made errors. As we were cutting a window through the skin, we cut too deep and pierced the fish's ovary. If you look at the picture you will see many tiny balls. Those are the fish's eggs. There were so many. Here are some questions concerning the perch dissection
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SquidTo see within the squid, we cut through the mantle and head to see the squid's brain and organs. We also stretched out the tentacles and pinned them down to examined how they work. The small suction cups were visible
FrogI was absent for the frog dissection, unfortunately. My partner Sterling completed the lab without me. He described it as wet
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These dissections provided much information on organisms and how their bodies work. Learning anatomy of other animals helps us understand our anatomy and how we evolved from these simpler organisms.
Before each dissection, we watched a video of a professional dissecting each animal we were going to dissect. It was very informative. Here they are.
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Evolution Book Club
Throughout our projects, we formed book clubs. Each group read a book written by a biologist. My group chose The Story of the Human Body by Daniel E. Lieberman. We wrote a review on it here. To summarize, Lieberman wrote a good and interesting book, but only if you are compelled to learn about evolution. His academic language made some parts difficult to read, but otherwise the book was well-written. I would recommend to serious biology students.
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Transitional Species Model
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We were tasked with creating a fictional transitional species and showing what it evolved into and from. We chose to represent this by making a stop motion animation of our species, the seabear.
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Overall, this was a good unit. I enjoyed the dissections and researching and creating projects within it. Because we did so many dissections, it got repetitive. The book report was a quick project that was enjoyable, as were the smaller projects such as our "mental models" and posters. We had a discussion on evolution versus creationism and made a power point presentation on snails in current events. This was a good unit and I am excited to see what is next.