Australia's Science Forum

Hi guys

One of my science teachers heard yesterday how another school had done a dissection on a stomach and complete intestinal track, presumably from a sheep. Its got him pretty exctied but he is wondering if we are actually allowed to do this in school with the risk of pathogens from intestinal contents. Whats the opinion?
Kathryn

sure its not a fish dissection ???...much safer than a sheep

dissection connection would be good people to talk to - once you get the go ahead.

I would be inclined to say "No, no, no, no, no!". Talking from experience, many years ago we had a wonderful teacher who decided that her class should look at a complete digestive tract. So I organised with a local pig abbatoir to get a complete digestive tract. I turned up about the end of smoko time and it became clearly apparent that I should have turned up a little later. The guys doing the slaughtering walked up to the race that the pigs were being herded down and I can still hear the lead pig screaming as the worker killed it. Then about five minutes later another worker came out with a steaming digestive tract and loaded it into the green garbag that I was holding. When I got back to school the teacher and myself had to remove the faeces from the lower bowel. The stench was appalling. The bladder still had urine in it and the stomach had grain. Needless to say it was the first and last time that we ever did that. Yes this is a graphic account and if anyone is offended then ask for it to be removed. In the meantime say NO.
Lyn.

While I was at TAFE we dissected an Entire sheep. If the stomach is burst the smell is room clearing and it takes quite some time to return. I would also wonder about the facilities you have for disposal of something like this and the space you would need to do it. When we did it we had post mortem vet benches that had drainage for the blood urine poo etc I would just say no. In the NT only food grade organs are allowed to be dissected, I know some people eat tripe but not sure about the intestines.

I'm with Narelle, check out dissection connection. If they can ship stuff to me and it arrives frozen, I'm sure it can go South and arrive frozen. I'm sure if you chat to "Miss Vivi" about whether the intestines are cleaned out etc, she'll give an accurate run-down. Always been happy with their service.

Dissection connection???? Who?? what??

DId the sheep's intestine a few times many years ago with one of the crazier teachers - other classes came to watch. Arranged the desks round the room, spread lots of newspaper out, heavy duty gloves, cut the intestine away from the mesentery, laid it out and and measured how long it was, then cut it at various places and squeezed out some of the contents to see how they'd changed as they progressed thrrough the system. Good thing we had the other classes in, as those teachers were able to supervise all the kids who couldn't stand the smell and went off with much shrieking to sit in the hallway. One positive - a kid who was normally a regular nightmare got totally involved, and acted very responsibly as the teacher's assistant for the whole procedure - it may well be the only thing he remembers from his high school years! Oh yeah, and the teacher helped clean up at the end

just do a search for dissection connection, as i think we're not allowed to post urls?

Anyway, our tecaher here sourced all the bits from different butchers and laid it all out on a table for a day, and all the kids got to see it - kind of like a pluck experience i guess.
I am so glad he did it though - i am more a test tubes and beakers kind of gal!

We just use tripe bought from Woolworths.
The pluck is icky enough. The smell once it has been around to all the classes by the end of the day is bad enough.
I don't think I could cope with any thing worse!
(accidently partially cooked the pluck 2 years ago when I was defrosting it. Talk about smell!!)

Hi Everyone,

We have completed a sheep disection before. We ask a local butcher to arrange it for us, and we let them know what specifics we want to look at. The butchers arrange for the stomach to be cleaned, the intestines cleaned, include oseophagus and some of the other organs. We have it washed before we disect, and have large tubs that it can be placed in after placing tables together. All tables are covered in newspaper and plastic. The teacher is the only one performing the disection, however all students have gloves, coats and enclosed footwear. We rely very heavily on our local butchers to source this in for us, and to clean all areas for students viewing. Our butchers have been fantastic in giving us the support where possible for students to perform disections and to observe disections. The teacher and myself take care of all the cleaning up afterwards and disposable. Goodluck, our year 11 Biology students learn lots from this activity. However we have swapped teachers now, and have not performed this for 2 years.

WOW! (Awed silence for a moment)...what a wonderful butcher! Lucky you.

Oh Noooo Lyn that is a horrible story. OMG I think I would have cried (and vomited) in front of all those men. Poor piggy. Dont get me wrong I LOVE PORK but I dont want to actually see or hear it being slaughtered.

Wow I will definately say no to this if it ever comes up.

BTW we use dissection connection too, they are brilliant.

Thanks for the feedback. He has decided to go ahead if I can manage to get it. Under NO circumstances am I going to an abattoir!!!! My meat comes in plastic sealed containers at the supermarket.... it has NOTHING to do with any living creature!
Kathryn

I phone our local butchers who organise this for us. They contact their suppliers who will truck it to the local butcher. We arrange the date that we would like to do the Prac, and the butcher works with our dates. I go down late morning to collect it from the local butcher. They prefer late morning for the stomach, so it can be arranged that morning and trucked to us. We do nothing other than tell them the date, time and collection. We have great butchers. Fantastic Prac for Yr 11 Biology.