People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has called on state education officials to halt the practice of dissection in the classroom.
The call follows the release earlier this year of a video showing a Sickles High School science teacher juggling dead frogs that were about to be cut up for learnin's sake. Dissection remains a common classroom tool despite the many alternatives there are to using dead animals to demonstrate students' knowledge of biological systems.
In a media release Wednesday, the group said it had reached out to Hillsborough County School officials to ask it to stop the practice, but received an unsatisfactory response.
"Frogs used for dissection are torn away from their homes in the wild and killed — and in classrooms like this one, students are taught that these abused animals are props and inanimate laboratory tools to be mocked, mutilated, and discarded," says PETA Director of Laboratory Investigations Justin Goodman in a media release. "PETA is calling on the state to teach students to respect life and science — and it can start by replacing cruel and archaic animal dissection with humane and more effective non-animal teaching methods."
But there may yet be some action on the local level.
Hillsborough School Board member April Griffin told CL via Facebook message Wednesday night that she's working on finding alternatives to dissecting euthanized frogs.
"When that came to my attention I asked for information [from district staff] on virtual dissection as an option," she said.
After all, PETA has a point.
When this reporter was in high school in the ’90s and in biology class it came time for everyone to break up into small groups to dissect a euthanized fetal pig (!), we were able to opt out on the basis of our beliefs and were instead issued a plastic replica showing a cross-section of the pig's innards.
Since then, numerous computer programs simulating the dissection experience, minus the smell of formaldehyde (like this one), have come onto the market. PETA has listed some alternatives on its site, and the National Science Teachers Association, while not ruling completely against dissection, is okay with humane alternatives.
It's unclear what the association has to say about juggling dead frogs, though.
While she hasn't received any information yet, she is following up on her request this week.
Anyhow, if cutting animals up for learning purposes really did anything more than desensitize many students to the grim reality of animal cruelty, you'd think the general population in the U.S. would have a better understanding of how their own bodies work.
Hospital costs would perhaps go down and maybe there would be no Dr. Oz types on TV hawking "miracle" weigh-loss supplements.
It's unclear how state officials — passionate animal advocates that they are — will respond to PETA's request.
This article appears in Oct 29 – Nov 4, 2015.