Frog Legs & Eyeballs

This episode is about dissecting frogs.  We did this each year in my 5th grade science classes. Now about the frog legs and the eyeballs?  Take a listen and you'll find out at the end! Have fun!

Please share my podcast website at: https://hangonkeepcool.buzzsprout.com Thank you for listening! -Mr. S

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Welcome back there to Hang On Keep Cool. I'm Mr. S, and today we're going to talk about one of the most fun things I did as a teacher each year, and that was dissecting frogs. And I know back then it sounded to like to a lot of people, especially some parents, that they would say we never did that until we were in high school. Or even some said maybe the early days of college. But that was it, and uh that's what we did in my fifth grade science class. So how we started was I had a human skeleton in my classroom, and I had those kids learn approximately 20 of the main bones in the human body that would also relate to the same bones in a frog. And then after they learned those, we would have a, we called it the bone test, and everybody had to get at least a C on the test before we were able to start dissecting frogs. And if they didn't the first time, then they kept taking the test until they did. And actually, I don't ever remember any of my children not being able to dissect frogs. They wanted to dissect that bad that they got right down to it and they could learn those bones. So then when it came time for dissection, the way we did it was I had tables in my classroom, and I divided the kids up into groups of three or four. Then each of the little group would get a dissecting tray and some dissecting tools, and of course the frogs. And the frogs were large frogs. And when they got those out, after I'd give the kids, oh, I'd say about 10 minutes to get over the smell of the formaldehyde, even though the chemicals they had then were uh they were supposed to be non-smelling formaldehyde, but you could still smell, especially an animal smell like a dead frog. But anyhow, after they got over that and they calmed down a little bit. Then we started to uh examine the frogs, and at first we did the exterior part and examine the skin and the limbs, the eye, the eyes, and the nose, all the nails, and then it was time to go on the inside, and I would demonstrate how to carefully uh slice the frog's chest part open without hurting the insides and without cutting their kids' fingers. They had to be very careful because they were using a scalpel, and I didn't want any cut fifth grade fingers, or I didn't want any fifth graders getting dissected. No, that didn't happen. I'm just kidding. But anyhow, we we'd go cut them open, and the reason we had groups was if they could help each other. If one of the kids was having trouble, there'd always be somebody there that could help. Then I walked around and I helped anybody that needed extra help myself. And they really found it very interesting. It was amazing how interested they were. We got to see the uh the heart. We removed the heart and were able to look at that. One of the most interesting things was when we sniffed out the lungs, they were able to take the lung and put it over an eyedropper, and when they'd squeeze the eyedropper bulb, they could make the lung breathe. It would expand and contract and expand and contract. That was really cool. And the other thing that was so cool was the stomach. Practically every frog we ever dissected had some type of insect in the stomach. And we found lots of beetles and occasionally a grasshopper and some other hard shell insects that weren't even digested yet. We could remove them and they were whole. And so the kids kind of got a bonus there. They could look at the insects underneath the microscope. But then we got down and we examined some of the other organs, and then we got down to the legs, and when we peeled the frog's skin off, that you could see the leg and the muscle around all its the leg bones. And the kids could understand then that that is the part of the frog that you would eat if you ordered it in a restaurant. You're the meat. The meat is the muscles on the frog's legs. In fact, I had an episode earlier. I talked about muscles and how we eat the uh mainly the muscles of an animal. We call it meat. And if you listen to that episode, you remember I had one parent that disagreed with me and sent me a note saying we don't eat in their family any mussels, they just eat the meat. So if you heard that, if you didn't, you might want to go back and listen. It's kind of funny. But anyhow, then in the very end, what was really cool is we would I let had the kids snip off as much of the muscle around the leg as they could, all the way down to the feet. And they had to be real careful when they got down to the frog's toes, and because the bones are so small, but they were very good about it. They were real meticulous, in fact. And when they got all the meat off they could, or all the muscle off the bone, then I would take their bone and I'd drop it into pure bleach, and we'd let it set in there for several minutes. And that bleach would loosen up the extra, the muscle that was left on there, and it would fall off. And when we take it out of there, it was a clean bone, the whole leg. And in my window across the room, I strung like a little clothesline, and then we take these um, we took the legs and we'd hang them up on the clothesline. And from outside, my on the outside looking up my glassroom, you could look up there and you'd see about 100, 200 frog legs hanging in there. It looked kind of funny. But anyhow, then when they dried, we would take, I would take and uh soak them in Mod Podge. Now, if you don't know what Mod Podge is, uh the way I would describe it, it looks a lot like Elmer's glue. And it coats the bone. We'd I'd dip it in and then pull it out. We'd have the leg on a string and we'd hang it up to dry, and it would dry clear. It would coat the bone and protect it. And for years, in fact, I still have a couple of the frog legs that I kept for myself, and they're just like they were the day that uh we did that. And so then I'd let the kids decide in their little group who got a leg bone, if they wanted one, they could take it home. And we did the same thing with the frogs' eyeballs. We could remove the eyeballs, they were a little round, they look like a little round BB, and we just mod podge them a little bit, let it dry, and they take those home. And the funny thing is, we do this dissection usually right before Christmas time, and a lot, and many of the kids decide to take their uh legs home and wrap them up, give them to their mom and dad for Christmas presents. Or some of them did the eyeballs. I'd see the parents sometimes uptown, and they'd tell me about it. They'd say, Well, I so-and-so came home for my birthday and I got a frog's leg. So they had fun with that and they really liked that. And they had fun doing it. They'd been hearing about dissecting frogs in the earlier grades, and one of the first questions they would ask when they got into my science class was when are we gonna dissect frogs? When are we gonna have Rocket Day? When are we gonna have the great egg drop? And I'll have to tell you about those in another episode. So there you have it. And oh by the way, a little footnote. I still have trouble in a restaurant ordering frog legs. I just can't do it. My wife likes them, but I haven't got into that yet. And I also don't like looking at noodles, but that's all part of the game. So until the next time, hang on, keep cool, and I'll catch you later.