Dissection Scramble

Pre-Lab Focus: Discuss with students safety and procedural rules on how to dissect organisms (we did this with a cow eye but it could be done with any organism/structure). Students are given a pre-lab worksheet to fill out going over the structures of the eye and each structure's function.

Procedure: Students will conduct a standard dissection of a cow eye using the dissection guidelines from Carolina Biological. Students will be able to identify each structure of the cow eye during and after the dissection. Students will be asked to take pictures before, during and after the dissection of the eye and its parts. After the students have correctly identified the structures of the eye they will clean up their lab space.

Follow-Up Activity: Students will download the pictures onto their laptops and use the pictures to create some sort of game or puzzle. The goal is to produce an educational game relating structure to function of a cow eye. Students will then be able to take turns playing each other's games.

Time: Pre-Lab and Dissection - 1 - 50 min. class period
Creating of the game - 1.5 - 2 class periods
Playing each other's games - .5 - 1 class period

The time commitment appears large, but the payoff for the students was worth it. By the end of the lesson they knew the vocabulary, could identify structures and functions of the parts of a cow eye.