By Lisa Heller
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Students who are squeamish or involved in animal rights can look forward to an alternative in frog dissection.
The Virtual Frog Dissection Kit, available on the Internet through Netscape, gives biology students the opportunity to dissect frogs without cutting them up. The Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory created the interactive program, which is available in seven languages, as part of its research with the ITG "Whole Frog Project" in 1994.
At the beginning of the program, the frog is covered and all the organs are present. Students can remove organs, and learn about each body part while reading an explanation of their functions.
The program contains a tutorial, an overview of how the program works, and a possible 24,000 short movies on frog dissection. Students can test their knowledge in the Virtual Frog Builder Game, in which they must place the organs in the correct place on the frog.
"This program is a very good alternative to dissecting in class," said Willis Horak, associate professor of teaching and teacher education. "I think it could become an accepted alternative at the secondary level."
Horak pointed out that unlike sheep or cow parts, which are obtained from deceased animals, frogs are specifically killed for dissection.
"The general problem with any computer program in biology is that there's tremendous variation," said James Walsh, associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology. "In computer programs, body parts are clean and easy to see. In a real frog, things are harder to see."
The URL address is http://george.lbl.gov./itg.hm.pg.docs/dissect/dissect.html.