Snake Dissections

I was invited to Mr. Morse's class today to observe students dissecting snakes with the help of CFF computers. This was a great example of taking an old lesson and adopting it for 21st Century learning. In the past, students used photocopies of old snake dissection pictures to identify the parts of a snake. With the new laptops, Mr. Morse created a Word document with instructions for the lab that contained links to a website that displayed the photos in color. Students organized themselves into groups of two and three. One student operated the laptop while the others performed the dissection. It worked very well and each group was able to identify the parts. I remember sitting in Biology looking at this old photocopied diagram of a snake trying to figure out the parts. It was much more identifiable for the students in Mr. Morse's class. Students also have access to the diagrams online so they can study for the quiz in which they will identify the snake parts using one of the photos from their lab.

Nice job, Mr. Morse and thanks for the invite.