Science!!!

Apparently we make the paper in Wenatchee too....

Go ahead — pull a muscle: Dissection takes wing at Sterling.Post a commentPrint By Rachel Schleif
World staff writer

Saturday, November 21, 2009

EAST WENATCHEE — Sixth-grader Ryland Dickey picked through layers of raw muscle with clinical intensity, looking for just the right tendon that would make his chicken wing flap.

“Here — it may be easier with the forceps,” Sterling Intermediate School science teacher Linda Waddell told him. “Grab a little piece. There’s a lot of different ones in there and it will surprise you which ones will pull different muscles.”

Waddell’s afternoon class, all 11- and 12-year-olds, wore black plastic bags, latex gloves and safety goggles Wednesday. The 28 students spent two hours identifying the anatomical parts of a wing: the nerves, muscles, tendons, ligaments and bone marrow.

Dissection starts a grade early at Sterling.

“I didn’t dissect until eighth grade, so I was really surprised,” said Dickey’s mother, Eileen, one of six parent volunteers. “I thought that a chicken wing didn’t sound all that exciting to dissect but I had no idea there was so much there.”

This is the second year Waddell has led a dissection project. It’s her favorite activity, she said.

“Hands on compared to reading: it’s two different worlds,” Waddell said. “Everything comes together like a puzzle. When they see this and then all the other stuff makes sense.”

Several students discovered things they didn’t know.

Katherine Janney said she had imagined marrow looking something like cartilage, but instead found a red clumpy substance.

Anthony Piccirillo found a claw on his chicken wing.

“I was experimenting and I wanted to see what this was so I cut it off,” Piccirillo said. Otherwise, “I was really surprised to find out the muscles were laid out exactly, exactly like they do in the textbooks,” he said.

“I’m definitely going to think of this every time I have chicken,” Piccirillo added.

Some students, mostly girls, were grossed out. Waddell assigned boy-girl pairs just for that reason, she said.

Nick McGill worked with intense focus as he scraped a glob of red marrow from the chicken bone and wiped it on the paper plate.

“Stop it!” his partner, Miranda Almacen, said, her eyes fixed on the plate.

“Mrs. Waddell did it,” McGill said.

“Yeah, but you don’t have to,” she said with a hint of disgust.

She turned to the next section of the 19-question lab assignment and read: “Now cut the tendon and peel off the muscle from the bone.”

By the end of class, even the most squeamish students agreed to cut through some tissue, Waddell said.

The prep work for Wednesday’s experiment demanded long days and careful planning. Science teachers coordinated with the other departments to arrange for a two-hour block for the students to work. Then came the purchase orders, freezing, bleaching, recruiting parent volunteers and establishing the rules. She said it’s worth it.

“You get them excited, so the rest of the year what I’ll be doing is referring back to what we did today,” Waddell said. “If I haven’t done it like this, it’s a totally different understanding. They think they understand, but now I know they know.

“There’s a difference between thinking you know and knowing you know.”