An eye-popping day in science class...

Much of what I write about on my blog pertains to my travels or venturing out and about in the city of Seoul, but every now and then I take my camera into the classroom and as I was going through my memory card I came across a few photos from one of my lessons last week.  In my IGCSE Coordinated Sciences Year 2 class we are studying coordination and response, which involves sensory organs like the eye and how it responds to stimuli.  I decided since the students need to learn the parts of the eye and their function that it would be meaningful to do a dissection (I really don't love dissection because it's smelly and icky, so you know it was meaningful).  So, enter our dissection specimens--the lovely bovine eyeball.  Yes, that's right friends, last Thursday my students sliced and diced a cow eye.  I did the same dissection when I was a student and it was pretty darn cool and, for the most part, my students thought dissecting the eye was the bees knees.  I did have a couple of kids who decided to be observers only and since I'm not really that keen on cutting myself, I completely understand.  Plus, I think you can still learn by observation so all is well.  Here are a few photos from dissection day!

Getting their dissection instructions...ready to cut, cut, cut!

It's harder than we thought to cut through the eyeball!

Engrossed in dissection!

Ewww!!!  Eyeball juice!  Actually, that's the aqueous humor.

Looking a tad bit grossed out in the background...

Look!  The lens just came out!

Getting inside that eyeball!

Peering through the lens!

More lens fun!  Too bad we can't look straight through it!

The inside of a cow's eye is pretty cool!

Thankfully everyone made it through the dissection without losing their breakfast, although I'm sure we had a few close calls when two of the eyeballs actually burst as the students tried to cut through the cornea.  Simultaneously I heard screams come from two of the groups and saw the kids trying to dodge the stream of aqueous humor that came spurting out of the eyeball and into the air like a fountain.  Good thing we were all wearing our goggles and aprons;).  I think this may be one of the science rights of passage for the year and what fun it was!