HomeSchool Dissection

Kristin & Sydney

We are working on the Human Body for Science in our Home School Group. As many of you know, I teach Science and History--and REALLY get into both! We just finished the circulatory system a few weeks ago, and we had a friend who was butchering a steer--so, since it is now illegal for the slaughter guy to give away the heart, he can only give it to the farmer who is butchering the cow. Thankfully, Debbie & Bill were more than willing to help out our science class. What a treat it was, as it was the BIGGEST cow heart I had ever seen.

After brushing up on my dissection skills, and going over many heart dissections on the internet, I dove into the heart in class. To my dismay, one of the parts was missing (from the slaughter) and I was at a total loss and quickly became frustrated. Thankfully, a friend lives right across the street from the school--who taught High School Science for 10 years, and he was already interested in coming to class to view the dissection--so I gave him a call, and he came over early to help me sort it out. I even learned more from him in the few minutes we spent together. He agreed to help me out in class...and was a great assett. Thanks Dan! It just goes to show, teachers are never too old to learn new stuff either!!

We had a great class, and with the heart being so big, I saw things I'd never seen in my anatomy classes in college, it was a real fun project. The older kids did well, but to my surprise, the younger class (K-3rd grade) did great. They got right into it, and really enjoyed what we did. The deer heart I had for that class was a bit bloody, but very useful, and the size was less intimidating for them.
I did not put this on the school page...but this heart had already been rinsed many times! Thankfully, the butcher did a great job at draining & cleaning the cow heart for me...phew!

Miranda and her cutaway section After class, all the teachers kids (Kristin, Ryan, Sydney and Miranda) came down, and asked it they could explore the heart more. Since we were done with it..and no one wanted to take it home for supper, I let them hav at it! They spent another hour working with the tools, and the hearts, getting more in depth than we did in class....and worked together to find all the parts, then of course, they did get a kick out of "disposing" of it for me. They cut many cross sections, and explored more. Here are some pictures that I will not put on our school web page...but you can check that out too at http://www.bvillehomeschool.blogspot.com/

Sydney is really getting into this...I kept reminding her she had a white shirt on!

After awhile...Ryan left, and it was just the girls....