Shark Envy

What do you get when you dissect a shark with some of your classes, but not all of them? Jealousy and a wonderful opportunity for kids to learn. Today was the last day that my Life Science students spend dissecting small sharks (dogfish). Most of them enjoyed it - though you always have a few who would rather moan and complain. I had the sharks out last week and my Biology students saw it. Naturally they wished to know if they too were going to dissect sharks. The answer was a simple "no". Biology dissects crayfish and fetal pigs.

Last year Austin, the other life science teacher (who is no longer at this school) dissected sharks with his students. I decided to follow his example and this year ordered some sharks (and some iguanas - gotta beat him somehow!). My sharks came vacuumed packed in bags (Austin's were in a tub and were bigger and better). A day or two before beginning our dissection I remembered and noticed the left over sharks from last year's teacher. Adding his to mine I now had twice as many sharks as I needed. Great, smaller dissection groups - or so I thought.

After school, Joe, the other bio teacher, had a student who wished to stay after school and dissect a shark for extra credit. One thing lead to another and we both opened up an after school dissection to all of our biology students.

Today, for an hour after school students meet and cut open my other four sharks. We had a full crowd of students staying after school to voluntarily dissect. It was great! We will continue the dissection through Wednesday.