Dissection Alternatives: Choosing Better and More Humane Teaching Methods

PCRM has launched a new website to help students and teachers find and use first-rate alternatives to animal dissection—a practice that is steadily being eliminated in schools nationwide, and for good reason.

While dissection was intended to interest students in science, it often has the opposite effect. Many educators feel that teaching science while preserving compassion and respect for life makes better sense for everyone.

Computer dissection software also saves money, leaves natural ecosystems intact, eliminates the risks of chemical exposure, and offers a superior learning experience. Dissection lacks a key step in the learning process—repetition. Once an animal is cut apart, the exercise cannot be performed again. However, computerized techniques allow students to explore human or animal anatomy as often as they like, until they have fully grasped the information.

The Answer Is Right at Your Fingertips
DissectionAlternatives.org is an online resource available to students and teachers around the world 24 hours a day. Oftentimes, students who oppose dissection are not fully prepared to work with their schools to receive fair alternative options and a fair grade. This new site offers an extensive list of scientific software designers with contact information, advice from physicians and students on instituting a choice policy, demos to try out, and information about the increasing push to end animal experimentation, not just in grade schools, but in the country’s top medical schools and research laboratories.

Advanced Classrooms
Here are some of the great educational alternatives available:

• The award-winning Digital Frog 2 allows students to “dissect” a computer-generated frog with a digital scalpel. Animations, quizzes, and movies help make biology fun. Visit www.DigitalFrog.com.
• NeoTek offers a frog dissection computer lab and software to study many other species. Visit www.NeoTek.com.
• ScienceWorks offers frog dissection CD-ROMs, plus many other programs. Check out www.K12ScienceStore.com.

For a more complete analysis of dissection issues and alternatives, contact us for our new brochure “Alternatives to Dissection.” Call 202-686-2210, ext. 327, or e-mail research@pcrm.org