Dissection is Not Good Science

The other night I was driving my son, Max, and his friend to a party.  Max's friend mentioned that he was sorry that the unit on dissection was over.   When I asked why, he told me how "cool" it was -- that one group had a pregnant frog, and that they got to see all of the eggs when they opened her up.  He said, too, that he could tell that his frog died while jumping; he knew that to be true by the position of the frog's legs.  Maybe Max's friend will grow up to be a scientist -- maybe not.  My guess is that 99.9 % of the kids in that class learned nothing of real importance from dissecting the frog, the sheep's heart or the chicken wing.   The one sure message that middle school dissection projects continue to give is that animal life is unimportant --  killing thousands of frogs so 12 and 13-year-olds can poke at muscle could  be worth an A.  

Today, Max and I spent a the morning in the cat room at the League.   He's working on a science project trying to determine whether or not gender has any bearing on which paw -- right or left -- is dominant.  The complete results aren't in, but as the official project photographer, I got some cute pictures!