Moo!

Our class had a lot of fun (some more than others) with the cow eyeball dissection last week. All semester we have been drawing and memorizing the body systems. With only a blank sheet of paper and a pencil, students can draw the digestive system, the ear, the heart, the nervous system, etc. Thank God we didn't have to cover the  reproductive system :) they can do that at home with their parents.
So after two weeks of drawing and memorizing the parts of the eyeball, we brought in 4 eyeballs to pull apart and see if we could locate all the parts for real. The kids really impressed me and could tell what most of the parts were without any help, due to their learning it so thoroughly. We found the iris, lens, cornea, pupil, vitreous humor, optic nerve, and choroid coat. The choroid coat was iridescent and a cool bluish/green color. You can see it as a bright blue in the middle picture sort of lining the empty eyeball. The placement of the optic nerve demonstrates the "blind spot" and why it exists. What a fun way to end our day of rigorous studies!! I don't think any of us will look at a cow the same way again.