Hand me the scalpel

Alicia Robinson

They may never want to eat lobster again, but students leave Conrad

Gilbert’s biology classes understanding more about how the bodies of

shellfish work.

A class on Monday was dissecting crawfish to learn about their

physiology, but before taking scalpels in hand, they had already

gotten some knowledge under their belts.

Gilbert asked the class questions about the crustaceans while

using a small mounted camera and two TVs to demonstrate what they

were about to do. They all shouted “dorsal” and “ventral” when asked

what the front and back of the crawfish were called.

After Gilbert walked them through the dissection, students lined

up with trays to get their crawfish and debated whether to wear latex

gloves.

“You’re going to touch it?” one student disgustedly asked another

who had decided to go glove-free.

They cut through the outer shell, or carapace, of the crawfish and

made sure they could find all the internal organs on a checklist.

While a few students commented on the smell, most didn’t seem daunted

by the activity.

Gilbert uses dissection to take students through the evolutionary

steps of simple to complex life forms. They start by dissecting

earthworms, then crawfish, and then sometimes a shark or a perch.

After that come frogs and higher-level organisms such as rats, which

Gilbert said led well into discussions of human physiology.

Doing dissections is essential for students before they reach

college if they want to go into a medical or scientific field,

Gilbert said.

“If they don’t have experiences like this, once they get into it,

they’re going to fall flat on their face,” Gilbert said.

The educational trend lately has leaned toward microbiology and

away from macrobiology, so students are expected to learn genetics

rather than the visible structure and function of living creatures,

Gilbert said.

High schools try to avoid the controversial topic of evolution, so

colleges are finding students unprepared in that area, he said. He

tries to give students an overall understanding of biology and lets

them focus on a particular area when they get to college.