3D Printers and Representational Literacy

Last trimester, all of my students had to crowd around a single dead frog and watch me pin its flesh to a tray and pull out its organs. It was impossible to get all of the students engaged, even after telling them to draw what they saw - even after letting them touch the frog heart! The only thing worse would have been to give each student a scalpel and have them do it themselves, especially in our limited classroom space (can you say Bad Idea?). And with dissection kits costing $15, getting students involved in dissections on their own organisms is just impractical.

Impractical, unsafe, and maybe even unethical. I haven't ruminated on the ethical issues on hand too much. But even after I'm comfortable making the cuts and identifying the organs, dissections still make me uncomfortable. 

This animal that I'm cutting up right now only ever lived in a box - it was born and killed so I could cut it open. *shiver*

One of our frog specimens, a female, was full of eggs.
I guess that's one thing you lose from 3D plastic frogs -
the spontaneity of dissecting a
complicated and unique organism.
I think it's a small price to pay.
Although, she is gorgeous, isn't she?

Dissections get kids interested in science, and the ability to see the actual anatomy of an organism does no end of good for students trying to understand physiology. I'm not saying dissections don't have their place. I am suggesting that, as teachers, maybe it's time for something new.

Online virtual dissections are a great option. Most are incredibly accurate, and many allow students a degree of freedom in wielding the "scalpel." 

But I am way more excited about this:

Thanks to Ryan Cain of USU's Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences, I now have a class set of 8 dissectable plastic frogs! And I didn't have to pay a dime. 3D printers like MakerBot make all sorts of incredibly accurate manipulatives available for teachers - and most are available, already created and ready for printing, on Thingverse.com.

In addition to allowing my students to dissect a frog without dissecting a frog, I'm excited to use these models to discuss representational literacy with my students. Which model is better? What makes a good model? How could we improve on this representation of this concept or phenomena? Maybe I'll even let my students create their own models!

I am so excited that technology like this has finally reached my classroom! Dissect away, kids!