More frogs live to croak

0 Comments | Insight on the News, March 30, 1998 | by Virginia McCord

Although animal dissection long has been a staple of junior-high biology classes, the children of baby boomers increasingly have become sensitized to animal rights. Some turn activist.

Last year, for example, students at Crossroads High School in Santa Monica, Calif., took matters into their own hands. Declaring that dissection should not be practiced by younger students -- and that the 3 million frogs killed annually for dissection is a waste of amphibian life -- the high schoolers protested the practice to middle-school principal John Sullivan. Sullivan consulted with his teachers and the school changed its policy. Now Crossroads teachers use computer simulation rather than dissection to teach anatomy.

"Education needs a revolution," says Sullivan. "We need to start listening to alternative methods of doing things."

Few schools have followed Cross-roads example, although many students find dissection repugnant. Since its inception in 1989, the toll-free Dissection Hotline (1-800-922-FROG), a nonprofit service designed to inform students, teachers and parents about alternatives to dissection, has received more than 150,000 calls, mostly from students.

Computer simulations, along with 3-D models and CD-ROMS, are valid alternatives, according to Jonathan Balcombe, an associate director for education on animal-research issues for the Humane Society of the United States, or HSUS. "It's a different experience than cutting into preserve tissues," he admits. "If the objective is to come away with a knowledge of anatomy, the simulations do serve a purpose. Repetition is the most important aspect of learning, and you can only dissect an animal once."

The National Association of Biology Teachers disagrees. "No alternative can substitute for the actual experience of dissection," it has said in a statement on the issue. The National Science Teachers Association also supports dissection in schools. "We are not just destroying a life," says Executive Director Jerry Wheelers. "We are doing a dissection, but it is for a reason.

The debate about animal dissection is far from over. The HSUS says six states have passed dissection-choice laws or resolution: Florida, California, Pennsylvania, New York, Louisiana and Rhode Island. Maine and Maryland have adopted dissection choice as a policy. Laws are pending in Illinois, New Hampshire and Massachusetts.