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Animal Dissection for ACCESS students

School:: University High School
Subject:: Science
Teacher:: Erika Gore
Students Impacted:: 42
Grade:: 9-12
Date:: August 27, 2024

Investor

Thank you to the following investor for funding this grant.

Anonymous Family Foundation - $309.67

Impact to My Classroom

# of Students Impacted: 27

This was an amazing opportunity for my students. They all greatly enjoyed it and learned a lot of information. For students with intellectual disabilities, it is harder to connect abstract concepts, even when provided diagrams. By providing them with the opportunity to dissect the frog and make the connections between the body diagrams discussed in class and the actual look and location of the organs. There where countless questions and exclamations of “oh that is what that looks like” or “oh so these two body systems are connected”. Followed with many questions comparing frog anatomy to human anatomy. Students also opened up the organs to look at the inner structures of each organ. On common discovery was the discovery of muscle fibers. Despite talking about this multiple times the concept of muscles being multiple little fibers was hard for them to understand. The muscle anatomy was looked at and the fibers were separated to look at the muscle fibers. Some students were able to isolate the ligaments and also view how these connect and support the bones. There are countless more pictures of all of their discoveries, and the conversations about the structures continued throughout the day, as they talked with the peers about all of the information they learned.

grant photo

Original Grant Overview

Goal

The goal is to provide ACCESS students with an enrichment activity to explore body systems, see how they appear in organisms, and how these organ systems are connected.

What will be done with my students

Related ACCESS points SC.912.L.14.Pa.2 – Recognize that small parts of a living thing can work together. (d.) Most multicellular organisms are composed of organ systems whose structures reflect their particular function. SC.912.L.16.Pa.6 – Recognize that living things reproduce (d.) reproduction is a characteristic of living things and is essential for survival. Students will be performing a frog dissection and exploring the different organs including the reproductive system. Other labs will be performed to explore the remaining components of these ACCESS points.

Benefits to my students

Students on ACCESS points struggle with making connections without real life examples. For example you tell them organisms have organ systems, but it will be hard for them to connect and picture how they appear in the body. By providing this enrichment activity it creates a stronger connection between how they look and where they appear inside the body.

Budget Narrative

All materials have been preapproved of by the district ACCESS director, District access specialist, ESE assistant principal, and school principal. Supporting documents of the safety procedures have been provided to all parties. This activity will be for both Modified and Multi VE students. The activity will be modified depending on the needs of each student. For those that can not physically perform the dissection, either the teacher or a para will dissect the frog while the student observes. Each organ system will be explained to the students as the dissection progresses. The number of frogs is an estimate at this time, as permission slips are required closer to the dissection date. Once permission forms are received the ratios and numbers of frogs may slightly change. The approximate ratio will be 3 students per frog, and a staff to student ratio of 1:3 during the entire activity to ensure safety. The smaller ratio will ensure optimal discovery within each group. With this we would need approximately 18 frogs purchased, which would allow for 1 demo frog in each class period. The demo frog will allow those who cannot dissect to observe the whole processes as well as assist the students actively dissecting by demonstrating each step. The school currently has all other supplies needed. The only things that need to be purchased will be the specimens.