My DD just told me her class will be dissecting a pig in Oct or Nov

Do the kids really dissect a whole pig ?and I thought that they had to be in high school before they took biology. DD is only in the 7th grade.
Sorry this sounds totally gross to me.Sure hope she doesn't pass out .lol

In 10th Grade we dissected cats in Anatomy.

And if memory serves me correct it's not a PIG, it is a piglet (baby pig).....I know that a lot of people have issues with being cruel and unusual treatment of animals. I will say that the actual hands on experience of dissecting what was once a living being is priceless and I would highly recommend it.

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It is probably a Fetal Pig, which is much smaller then what you are thinking. 7th grade sounds WAY early for it. I did not dissect one until I was a Junior.

It is actually VERY interesting. Even as a JR we were told not to eat breakfast (or lunch depending upon when we had the class). I used to get queasy very easily but it did not bother me. The smell was worse then actually seeing it.

Hope this helps

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its been awhile but our dd had to do a pig . it was a little bitty one . the teacher told them it was born dead so that kinda helped. she said it stunk to high heavens.

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I don't remember disecting anything.Most likely if they had I probably skipped school that day is why I dont remember.I do remember having to kill some 50 or so bugs and insects and stab them with a pin onto a big board of wood and label them.I hated that .I think I just caught them and had my brother or dad do all the torturing.The last thing a born again christian wants to do is murder a bunch of butterflies and bugs.

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I'm 41 (will be 42 this year) and in 7th grade we disected a frog and a worm. As a sophomore in high school, we were paired up with lab partners and each pair disected a cat. I think that it is fairly common. Oh, this was in Colorado.

We did a fetal pig, but not until high school. We did it over several weeks and it stunk something awful.

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Yeah, born dead because its pregnant mother was slaughtered.

Geez, they should at least tell kids the truth.

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Whew, Thanks everyone. I was sitting here picturing a really big pig, glad to know it's only a small one.( Not that this is really any better LOL).

he he Ok maybe not too funny, but got to ask. A few have said it smells to high heaven does this mean it's a pickled pig J/k ( already in formaldehyde ) ?

I too don't remember dissecting anything and like you Dolly if so, I probably skipped school that day . ( Can we say Yuck !, Gross! )

DD has always claimed she wants to be a zoologist guess no better way to get an early start than now.

Guess I'm just a little taken back as I "thought" she would at least be in the 9th grade before doing this. still sounds odd to make 12 yo's dissect anything at this age.

yes, the smell is formaldehyde....

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whoa, some of y'all had to dissect a cat ? how or where do they get them ?

good lord, So glad I never had to do this in school. There's just no way I wouldn't have passed out or thrown up. ( I have the weakest stomach. took everything I could mustard to change poopie diapers ROFL )

We were told that they received them from Mexico.

There are farms/labs/what ever you want to call them that raise animals just for the purposes of dissection, research, etc.
My sister works at a major university in the research department and her job is to order the animals that are needed for various research projects. The animals DO NOT come from the local humane society, even the cats/dogs are ordered from specialized breeding facilities.

I remember dissecting a fetal pig in 9th grade. Not to be gross but a bunch of pigs came together in a packet of preservative and a bunch of us joked that it looked like a pack of hotdogs.

You can tell your daughter that the animals used in classroom dissection do not bleed or anything like that. They stink something fierce but other than the smell I found dissection to be very interesting and informative.

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did a fetal pig in 10th grade. Only girl in a group of 3 boys who wimped out and couldn't do any of the disection. I have a neat photo of me holding the heart with tweezers.

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We had to do cats. Ours was not raised to be dissected it was an older male cat that had been neutered. I was told by the teachers they got them from animal shelters. This poor cat had been someones' pet. I had a much easier time dissecting humans in college than that cat. It really upset me. We also did worms, crickets, frogs,sheep eyes, pigs and one class did sharks. The only did sharks once. The smell was truely unbearable in the entire school.

We did fetal pigs in 9th grade biology (or perhaps 10th if I'm swapping biology and chemistry in my mind year wise - pretty sure it was 9th though). It wasn't that bad, they smelled like the preservative and not much else. Ours had red and blue latex injected in them so you could tell the difference between veins and arteries. I remember being vaguely glad it was a pig and not a frog because frogs were slimy. I didn't find myself particularly traumatized by the experience and even ate pork chops later that week. Now I did ask to be excused from the cat dissection (1 per class versus 1 per pair of students with the pig). I was already doing cat rescue by then and the one they had was colored the same as one I'd rescued and owned at the time. The teacher gave us what I thought was a fair alternative - those of us who opted out could sit in class with our backs to the dissection and simply take notes on the oral portion of the presentation. We then had to take a 10 question multi-choice exam on what had been discussed. Later after he'd removed the cat's body we did have to watch him demonstrate the lungs inflating - but that didn't bother me since they were "disembodied" if you will.

Was it the most pleasant few days of my life? Not particularly, but it sure helps weed out the people who don't want to be vets, doctors etc. If you can't make it through the frogs and fetal pigs you're better off in another profession. Although I'd argue people who would prefer not to sit through the cats can make a fine people doctor but....

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I work in middle school in California and Pigs are dissected in 7th at my school.

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OMG! I'm shocked and appalled to hear that some schools choose to dissect cats! Why on Earth would they use an animal that is such a common household pet?!! That's just outrageous.

We started dissecting worms and fish in 7th grade. In 10th grade we dissected frogs, and it seems like there may have been some crawdads somewhere in there. The frogs didn't bother me whatsoever, but I'm pretty sure dissecting a cat would have traumatized me. I don't even want to think about it.

.

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No one mentioned how long ago it was that they dissected cats thoguh so it could have awhile. My 8th grade science teacher had a skeleton of a cat that some guys put back together back from when my mom was in the same class.

My oldest is going into 9th and dissected a frog and a worm in 7th

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I'm very glad it's a piglet that will be dissected in the class now. My DD would freak if she had to do a cat ( she thinks there's nothing in the world like a cat)

I'm totally shock to learn there are cat farms this seems so cruel to raise them only for kids to dissect at school. I would have a lot better understanding if it was schooling for a vet or a doctor as they need this information but not for 12 yo's to 17 yo's that may never go into this field.

My DD refused to dissect a pig on moral grounds. We went all the way to the school board when the teacher said it was either dissect or get a 0 for the assignment. She is a vegetarian and did not see any benefit of a bunch of 16 year olds pulling apart an animal when the same information could be found elsewhere. She did research and found a site where you could do "online" dissection which did not require her to go against her beliefs. As she said in her statement to the board, the students that truly wanted to pursue a career pertaining to biology this may be beneficial. But for the majority of the class an online tutorial would be sufficiant. I applauded her decision to make a stand for her beliefs and to work within the system to find a solution. Personally I never dissected a pig, a cat or even a worm and I don't recall in my 48 years that it has ever held me back.

I'm glad I only had to disect a frog in high school and that was gross enough for me!

My son came home yesterday from high school (he's a senior) and told me that they will be dissecting a cat. That really made me want to hurl. I love animals...poor kitty. I really don't think that I'd be able to do this. We did frogs in high school and that was enough for me as well. ~Lisa

We were supposed to do the frog and the pig in 8th grade, but after the frog incident I flat out refused the pig. The very first day of the frog I got sick right there in the middle of class (like actually threw up). I had ZERO intentions of going into a science related field and felt that it was unfair to make someone who actually became sick during the process continue - so I refused and took the zeros (with my parent's support). I personally think it should optional and each child should have a choice between that and another project.

I dissected "my" cat when I was 16 y/o--so that would have been about 20 years ago.

And since I actually ended up in a medical type profession--the 6 weeks we dissected the cat was extremely helpful and beneficial. Ours was a very in-depth dissection, not only did we have to find and know the internal organs (what they did and how they did them) we also had to find the major muscles and learn the origin, insertion and action of the muscles. We were a small class of 9 and had to share 5 cats.

I am sure to some this is going to sound morbid and gross--but some of my fondest memories of High School are from that Anatomy class and our time spent dissecting the cat. It's also the class that I actually learned the most from. It's the only class that challenged me, that I had to study for and enjoyed the most. It prepared me for college. It was such a challenging class that it's the only class I didn't make an A in. I lost out being Valedictorian of my class because I made a B in that class and the other girl took Home Ec and FFA(farm sciences) and made an A.

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