Eye-Opener Third graders learn from dissection
SLIPPERY ROCK — Slippery Rock Elementary third graders looked at science through new eyes recently.
Each class witnessed a cow eye dissection, and class members were able to touch and feel the parts of the eye. Teacher Jill Takach and student teacher Erin Breese performed the dissections for the students.
Classes have been studying light for about three weeks, including how people see and process what they see, Takach said.
"I've done this demonstration for a couple years," she said. "We use cow eyes because they're not bloody or gory."
Students who didn't want to participate could opt out and choose another activity. During the day of three classes, only about three students didn't want to watch the dissection. Most didn't even want rubber gloves to touch the eye parts, instead opting to do so bare handed.
As Breese cut into the eye in the afternoon class, the crowd gathered with wide eyes of their own, watching her extract parts that, according to them, looked like parts of mushrooms, skin, jelly and even uncooked egg whites.
"You are now practicing optometrists," Takach said as she asked students to make up their own theories about how the parts of the eye should feel.
"Miss Breese, do you have your scalpel?" she said, as Breese took the cow's eye out of the preserving liquid and held it up for the students.
"It's really big," said one student.
"It's really scary," said another.
But as she passed the whole eye around, only two students opted not to touch it. A few even tried to squeeze it, surprised at how hard the eye was intact.
As Breese cut off the cornea, iris and other parts, students "oohed," and "ahhed," but kept the "eww, gross," comments to a minimum.
Takach commended them on being mature scientists while Breese finally got to the coolest part, according to most of the students. She turned the shell of the eyeball inside out to reveal a shiny blue coating. It's the part of the eye that makes animal's eyes shine when you reflect light into them, like when spotting deer, Breese said.
"I never knew that was in the back of the eye," said Adam Fuchs, one of the students. "That was really cool."
His classmate Brynn Horner agreed.
"That part was so shiny and colorful," she said.
Horner said other parts of the eye were "really slimy," especially the almost clear aqueous membrane, which surrounds the eye and looks like uncooked egg whites.
Another surprise, the students said, was the pupil, which turned out to be a small black tunnel in the eye. Asked to predict what it would be like, most students guessed a small and hard black ball.
Takach and Breese told students the type of research they were witnessing is similar to what scientists do to help people who need glasses or eye surgery. They also linked the lesson to how Native Americans used all parts of the buffalo in the West, even parts of the buffalo's eyes. The shiny blue part that impressed the students could be turned into a small pot for a variety of uses, for example.
