Month: August 2014

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Stillborn piglet workshop 16 October 2014

Dissection Workshop – Stillborn Piglet
At Nambour State High School
Thursday, 16 October 2014 from 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM (AEST)
Nambour, QLD

This workshop morning is aimed at secondary school teachers and lab techs and will focus on a stillborn piglet specimen which is suitable to use in teaching any of the body systems core units of the Australian National Curriculum. The workshop will include a hands on dissection as well as an introduction to anatomical colouring-in resources as teaching tools.

With most of the Uni’s closing or downscaling their animal breeding houses it has become very difficult to secure a good supply of rats for dissection. The sensible and ethical alternative is a stillborn piglet from Dissection Connection.

The session will be focused on giving teachers the knowledge and confidence to enrich their lessons, giving lab technicians the tools to assist and support their teaching colleagues with incorporating specimens like these into their lesson plans and, in the long run, engaging students more by enriching their learning.

Each participant will also receive a certificate of participation to include in their professional development dossier.

Don’t miss this opportunity to get your hands on our pound of flesh. I look forward to meeting you ‘in the flesh’ and hope we can deliver a workshop to remember.

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Top Tip: inject the heart vascular system with paint

bovine heart with paint injected into the vascular system
bovine heart with paint injected into the vascular system
bovine heart with paint injected into the vascular system

Here’s a top tip that I first was given by a very experienced biology teacher at Brisbane Grammar. You can inject the vascular system of a heart with paint to highlight the blood vessels.  I had a practice yesterday and found it much easier on this bovine heart than I ever have on a porcine heart.  I’m not very experienced with syringes and needles, though, and there were plenty of labbies in the porcine pluck workshop at ConQEST that did a great job of it.

My tips for success:

  • Water down the paint a bit to make it easier for the syringe and needle.
  • Use a brightly coloured paint.  Red and blue is tempting but yellow, orange and green show up much more clearly.
  • Allow a bit of air to flow out of the needle into the blood vessel ahead of the paint if you can.
  • Massage the paint along the finer vessels with your finger.
  • Try not to tell the lady at the craft shop what you really want to use the paint for.  She will just look thoroughly disgusted and keep one eye on you until you finally get out of her shop.

I’ve also been told you can let the paint dry and see the highlighted vessels by cutting across the muscle and looking for the paint.

It’s fun!  Give it a go!

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