Tag: body systems

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A WTF is that moment in the pluck bucket

Switch to virtual dissections, they said!
It’ll be fine, they said!
It’s all fun and games until someone loses a kidney. Even I had a WTF is that moment in the pluck bucket yesterday – after 20 years of looking at them.

galline pluck from dissection connection

This article about a surgeon that mistook a kidney for a tumour in a patient and removed it popped up in my Facebook feed today. You can read the full story here.  I don’t know how or where the surgeon was educated, but I do often hear from those in the classroom that virtual is the way of the future.  However – that isn’t what I hear from actual health care professionals. The support for dissection from the people you are relying on when you are sick don’t support virtual dissection as the only tool for learning gross anatomy.

We genuinely are all unique in our own ways and I want a doctor that has had some actual meat in their hands before they get to mine. How about you????

If we don’t keep the community generally educated in science then the need for science education becomes less valued by society. That can lead to mistakes like this happening and that can have very real consequences for real people and their families.

So I’m setting you a challenge. Do a virtual dissection online. Do the best one you can get Google to give you. Do it as many times as you like. Then dissect the real thing. I guarantee you that you will find it easier than going in without any pre-study at all, but I also guarantee you that you will have moments when you think “hang on, what am I looking at here?” and have to work a bit harder to get the full picture.

Now put yourself in the shoes of your average kid in Junior Science. They deserve a fighting chance at understanding their bodies properly so they can make good decisions later in life – especially if they find themselves hanging over you with a scalpel in their hand one day.

 

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Backyard PD in Hervey Bay, a whole new approach to workshops

backyard pd in hervey bay by dissection connection and rockhoundz

backyard pd in hervey bay by dissection connection and rockhoundz

So, we have this crazy idea.

I bet you find that hard to believe?
We are renting a house in Hervey Bay for a week and running a couple of afternoons of workshops.  But we think we can run a kind of Choose Your Own Adventure thing where instead of offering only one workshop we can offer a range of topics to be run concurrently and you choose which one you want to do.  We’ll do it under the mango tree in the backyard at the house.
It’s a bit experimental but we think we can make it work.
We’re trying to find a way to offer more flexibility in a program and not lock people into doing the workshop of our choice or wait for the next opportunity to roll around.  What do you think?  Is it too crazy?
post by miss vivi at dissection connection
23 May 2016
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Links we love: Miss Vivi’s reproductive playlist on YouTube

By Henk-Jan Kooiman (Adam en Eva) [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Have you seen the resources on Miss Vivi’s YouTube channel lately?  All good stuff for the classroom or for brushing up on your knowledge before you launch headlong into a dissection.

Here is the Reproductive System playlist.  If you can’t see the video then click on the link.  Head on over to Subscribe to Dissection Connection on YouTube to hear when I add new content.

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29 Jan 2016

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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.