Yesterday was a busy day with two dissections in the last two classes of the day. They year-7s were busy during their class dissecting squid and the "Animal Inside" group were dissecting mice! I would much have preferred the mice the entire day; they didn't smell as bad as the squid and they certainly weren't as messy. I had ink all over myself at the end of the lesson with the youngins. Calamari certainly didn't sound great for dinner; good thing we had steak instead!
The "Animal Inside" crew really enjoyed the mice, well, at least most of them did. A few of the students had to leave the room because they couldn't handle the dissection. They spend the lesson on the computers doing some research on a task I gave them as an alternative to the dissection. The rest of the students, working on the mice, did a fantastic job! I was really impressed with their keenness to preform the task. I dissected a rat, along with the students, to help them with the procedure. Before making any cuts in the mice, I gave the students a demo of how to preform each of the necessary cuts. I probably should have worn gloves looking back; my hands still smell of feral animal.
Today, the students in "Bones" finished up their projects on the computer. Unfortunately, a few of them were having computer issues and weren't able to finish on time. At least they have the next two weeks until they see me next in class, so they have plenty of time to complete the assignment. Students were told that they could make any additions to their site over break if they wanted to make them look better. If you would like to see some of their progress, you can go to www.bscbones.weebly.com
One of the students put together the home page today after he finished his project. He put together all of the hyperlinks to the rest of the students' sites; I was quite impressed!
I arrived home today and started the laundry so I have fresh clothes when I leave for Melbourne on Sunday with my parents. I also submitted my project to Miami; I'm so relieved that it's done!
Tomorrow I only have one class and then will be swamped with grading and then parent-teacher conferences after school until 8 or so. I'm excited to meet students' parents but am a little nervous since they are my first ones. I'm sure they'll go well and there will be a lot to take from the experience!