Learning about the eye through dissecting sheep eyes

Teachers always say that the best way to learn is to dissect the material. However, for Mr. Potts’ anatomy class, the saying is quite literal for these students.

On March 15, Potts’ second period class anatomy class dissected something rather interesting: a sheep’s eye. Usually, high school students dissect frogs or mice, but Potts wanted to do something different. Dissecting a sheep eye allows students to better understand the human eye.

“It is the closest thing to a human eye as possible and it provides good practice for future dissections,” said Potts.

Through the assignment, students learned that there is a gooey, film-like substance that acts like a lens for sheep to see. The inside itself is mostly black with pretty pigments of blue, which allows the sheep to see color.

Some students were more disgusted by the dissection than others.

“My favorite part of the dissection was throwing it away,” said senior Allie Gentry.

Despite students’ opinions, it allowed them to better understand the material and served as a practice for future dissections.

“The eyeball is so squishy,” said senior Jalen Moore.

“The hardest thing about the dissection was cutting the eyeball,” said junior Saige Johnson.

After the dissection, the students watched a video about the cornea. The video showed doctors doing surgery on a human eye, which allowed students to see the different parts of the eye in a more detailed way.

“This lab is perfect to do because it is so easy and it takes less time to complete,” said Potts.

Later in the semester, the students will be dissecting kidneys from cats.