Cow's Eye Dissection

Mary asked "How do our eyes work?" the other week. Which, in turn became a little mini-unit this week in biology. We've had a good time with this unit. I picked up a couple books at the library, found a few websites and played with a magnifying lens.

One website that I found I put on my maybe list. It actually has a short movie showing and explaining the dissection of a cow's eye. This is part of Exploratorium, a science museum in San Fransisco. It was a maybe because, like any dissection it could get a little graphic.

I told Mary about it and talked about the fact that she would see someone cutting into a 'real' eyeball and pulling apart the different parts. She wanted to try it. So we watched for a couple minutes and then she said that she didn't want to anymore. Which was fine, I turned it off. Later, though she came back and said that she really wanted to see it again. Now that she knew what was involved she was ready for it. And, she did. We had a great conversation about how things do look different than you imagine from just seeing a picture in a book. Her biggest concern was for the poor cow they took the eyeball from. So, I had to explain to her that losing the eyeball was the least of that cow's concerns.

Here is the link to the 'eye' page. There is also a photo link if you don't want to actually watch the video, diagrams of the the eye and other eye-related activities.

Peace,
Amy