- Curriculum Overview
- After School
- Events and Celebrations
- Service Learning and Partnerships
- Special Assemblies
- Mini Courses
Spotlight on . . . Science
by Elizabeth Pandosh, Science Teacher
It’s not everyday you get to see a shark up close and personal and live to tell the tale. Students in 3rd through 6th grade will be dissecting a Dogfish shark in October to go along with our water studies! The students will prepare to dissect the Dogfish shark by researching information about its external and internal anatomy. The shark dissection is completely optional; all students have the right to decline to dissect.
Students will go through a guided tour of the preserved specimen to understand the location of various structures and the functions behind these structures while gaining a good understanding of the animal’s anatomy. After we go through the dissection as a group, students will be able to search around the various parts of the Dogfish shark. As we all respect nature and all of her creatures, no mutilations of the sharks will be permitted.
Dissecting gives you a higher appreciation of the body. It is the hands-on leaning and exploring and examining which makes the information previously learned concrete and gives it more importance while showing its relevance. Students will compare the Dogfish shark anatomy to human anatomy looking for similarities and differences. Dogfish sharks at one time were introduced into the commercial market but did not go over well. Today they are used primarily in research to study the organizational pattern of its vertebrae and to gain a better understanding of the specialized organ systems of higher vertebras.
Since the Dogfish is of moderate size, its anatomy can be studied much more easily than other sharks. For more information about the Dogfish shark, go to www.beach-net.com/Sharkspinydog.html with your child. Also you can go to the SRV Science Room web page (www.theschoolinrosevalley.org) as more information and photos become available on this exciting experiment.
Past "Spotlight On..." articles
