It’s Not Fourth Quarter Without a Pig Dissection!

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Cassidy Hluchan, Reporter

When you think of an Anatomy and Physiology class, the movies taught you that all you do is dissect animals and experiment in each unit. Unfortunately, this is not the case for many schools including Lakeview High. Each student taking this course had to trudge through chapters upon chapters of course material before they were finally able to reach the dissection point in the class. At the end of the day, however, the time has finally come. Lakeview High School’s Anatomy and Physiology students are beginning to feel like actual scientists. 

Let’s begin at the beginning of the year when the course teacher, Maureen Bucko, gave a rundown of the class to her students. They had to endure numerous chapters consisting of endless quizzes and tests. Additionally, some chapters were even large enough to be divided into two subchapters, all consisting of rigorous coursework and mind-bending exams. It wasn’t until the fourth quarter of the year that the students would finally be able to put their newly learned knowledge regarding anatomy and physiology to use, with the intricate dissection of a fetal pig. 

The dissection goes as follows: throughout the span of two weeks, students have to complete two main tasks. First, they have to complete lab papers divided up by chapters. They are riddled with key terms and questions that will better help them understand the anatomy of the pig when it comes to actually dissecting the fetus. One a chapter’s papers are completed for one section, the student may then dissect the pig as follows in that specific chapter. From there, lab practicals are given by Bucko so the student can correlate their lab papers to their dissection.

This dissection is extremely beneficial to students who want to go into the science section of the career field! This is the first time in their high school careers, especially since Covid-19, that students can participate in such a hands-on lab, and many students pursuing science undergraduate degrees are grateful. 

Senior Ava Parise is pursuing a Health Sciences degree at The Ohio State University this fall, and the pig dissection is helping her to confirm that she made the right choice going into the medical field, saying that “I really thought I wasn’t going to handle this dissection well, but once I got started, I found every step of the process very interesting.”

Secondly, the pig dissection is even interesting for students who aren’t planning to go into the medical field, or any sort of science research. Since this dissection is taking place in the form of pairs, students are also learning incredible communication skills along the way in terms of how to work on a project together. 

Senior Rachel Campolito fits right into this category, for she will be attending Ohio University this fall to major in Marketing, but she still “finds this type of stuff very interesting not only because I get to learn about how an organism lives, but also because I am learning valuable life skills. Some of these include communication when performing difficult tasks on the pig, and also time management skills since the dissection and all of the papers to go with it have to be completed in a timely manner. These are the types of skills that will benefit me one I begin pursuing my undergraduate degree.”

Lastly, this dissection is especially beneficial to juniors taking the course that don’t know what they want to pursue in college yet. Of course, the dissection and lab process isn’t for everyone, for some individuals become increasingly grossed out and anxious around such environments. As a result, this acts as a great ice breaker for students who are still unsure of their potential college major. 

Junior Eliza Farr elaborates on this ideology, stating that “this dissection was exactly what I needed to steer me in the right direction regarding my major for college applications. That process is approaching full speed ahead towards the whole class of 2023, and labs like this not only educate me in its respective subject, but it also shows me what I’d be interested in doing for the rest of my life.”

So as students are nearing the end of the first week of their dissection, they are eagerly waiting to continue after the weekend passes by.