Honors biology students further explored class material in an end-of-year pig dissection held May 9–22, culminating in a practical test on pig anatomy using real fetal pigs.
Over the course of two weeks, students saw the organ systems they had been learning about in lectures materialize in the lab.
“I’m excited that we get to do [the dissection] instead of listening to a lecture,” Mia Rosenfeld ’28 said
For most of the dissection period, student pairs inspected and interacted with different parts of the fetal pigs, starting with the abdominal cavity and ending with the mouth. Each pair was assigned a pig for the duration of the dissection and worked together to examine each part. Before the lab began, students were paired based on how comfortable they were with dissecting the pig themselves.
“The biggest takeaway from the pig dissection is for students to see how the organs are organized in a mammal and what they all look like in real life,” Biology teacher, Geoff Robertson said. “This is a really important step up from studying the same structures from diagrams on a worksheet.”
The dissection allowed students to apply their in-class learning in a hands-on setting. For the fetal pig practical assessment, 20 stations were set up around the classroom, with half featuring fetal pigs marked with pins indicating specific parts of their organ systems. Students had 90 seconds at each station to identify the parts and, at rest stations, explain their functions.
“Personally, I loved honors biology,” Charlotte Conrad ’28 said “I thought that it was super informative, and I also think it prepped me pretty well for more advanced classes.”As the dissection ended and students began preparing for the final biology assessment on June 3, both students and teachers reflected on their experience.
“My favorite part of honors biology is the community that we build,” Robertson said.“While I genuinely love the subject and the content of the class, the students are what makes this my favorite course to teach at HW.”
