My name is Delaney and I am a Grade 8 student in an Abbotsford middle school. Our science class will be dissecting a cow eye tomorrow and I wanted to explain why I think the rules of animal dissection should be changed.
Schools are always talking about how bullying is wrong and that everyone should stop it. I think this is ridiculous because animal dissection is us taking a creature who is weaker and smaller than us and killing them for our own purposes. In this way, animal dissection is the same as a bigger kid killing a smaller child and taking them apart just to have fun. It’s hypocritical. Schools often teach about non-violence, yet during a dissection lab the kids are told to go forth and cut open an innocent being that hasn’t done anything wrong.
Dissection teaches that creating suffering in another living organism is alright. Also, dissection is bad for the environment because of the dangerous chemicals used for preservation. Formaldehyde causes cancer.
There are other ways for students to be learning about the biology of living things. For example, schools could buy computer programs that teach the same thing, if not better, than dissection would teach them. This way would also become cheaper in the long term for the school because you only have to buy the program once and it lasts a lifetime. You have to continuously buy animal parts for children to dissect.
I hope people will take this into consideration the next time that they are thinking about doing a dissection class with their students.
Delaney Coughlan