[The Boston Globe Online][Boston.com] [Boston Globe Online / Metro | Region] [ Send this story to a friend | Easy-print version | Add to Daily User ] Bill proposes to click, not cut, the mouse By Sandy Coleman, Globe Staff, 2/5/2000 [Image]t's as unforgettable as the prom. A lifeless frog, cat, or fetal pig stretched out on a table, smelling of chemical preservatives, awaiting the scalpel cut of students learning through dissection. For some horrified students, it's an experience they would prefer to skip. A proposed bill would help them do that, allowing them to use alternatives such as computer technology that some say teach the same lessons. While the proposal isn't new - a similar bill has languished in the Legislature for a decade - this time a group that promotes cruelty-free education is dressing up the subject as a women's issue, hoping it will be the key to the bill's success. ''We believe boys have as many ethical concerns as girls but it's harder for girls to stand up and voice their concerns,'' said Theodora Capaldo, president of the Boston-based Ethical Science and Education Coalition. ''Education isn't supposed to be boot camp.'' And it doesn't have to be, now that there's Digital Frog and Cat Lab, and other three-dimensional CD-ROM software students can use to study organs, muscles, and skeletal systems by touching a mouse instead of a frog. But some science teachers say clicking is not the same as cutting. ''I wouldn't want a doctor working on me that worked on a computer model,'' said Michael Nassise, director of natural and applied sciences at Stoughton High School, who uses computer technology as a supplement. ''Nothing can beat working with the actual specimen.'' Jocelyn Koloski, a Triton Regional High School senior, dissected a frog, a sheep eyeball, and a sheep brain in eighth grade. ''I wouldn't do it again,'' she said. ''At the time, I really didn't know differently. I didn't think about it too much. It was sort of: Here are the animals, they're dead, cut them up ... I was young. I didn't know about options.'' What is at stake here is more than avoiding slicing up frogs, say coalition members. Offering choice on dissection is paramount to keeping girls interested in pursuing careers in science and medicine where they are underrepresented, Capaldo said. The argument goes: Students required to dissect despite their ethical concerns about animals being killed for that purpose may turn away from science and choose other career paths. Some students may even undermine their chances because they avoid classes that require dissection, said Prudence Goodale, assistant superintendent at Stoughton High. ''Colleges are looking for students who have a strong background in science,'' she said. ''So when a student arrives in college and is contemplating a career in science, if they don't have as many courses and labs as other students, they may feel they are at such a disadvantage that they may turn to another career.'' In the past year, the Ethical Science and Education Coalition has mailed out information to about 800 Massachusetts girls who have expressed their objections to dissection on the hot line of the National Anti-Vivisection Society in Chicago. However, pushing alternatives to dissection as a women's issue may be a tough sell to some who wonder whether the strategy plays into stereotypes of women as the weaker sex. ''I don't like to categorize everything as women's issues,'' said state Representative Lida E. Harkins, a Democrat from Needham and newly appointed chairwoman of the Committee on Education, Arts and Humanities. ''I like to think we can face the issue head-on.'' Coalition leaders, who have a lobbyist pushing for the bill, are hoping they can convince Harkins, who has the power to bring the bill before the committee. The coalition also has sent a letter to the head of the women's legislative caucus. ''I don't look at it as a women's issue,'' said state Representative Louis L. Kafka (D-Sharon), the bill's lead sponsor. ''I just feel students have certain rights, male or female.'' Kafka said the computer technology he has seen has come far enough to offer students a virtual reality dissection experience comparable to the real thing. In the past, the dissection bill has stalled, partly because several lawmakers objected to the only alternative - which was to allow students to work with plastic models of animals. The Massachusetts Teachers Association remains opposed to the bill, objecting that it would interfere with a teacher's authority to determine course requirements. And several teachers still support dissection. Nassise, the Stoughton High teacher, bought his computer program from the Ethical Science and Education Coalition. But in the fall, 11th- and 12th-graders in his honors physiology class will start out with a cat and dissect it throughout the year until it is a skeleton. Other teachers, such as Tom Gwin at Newton High North, insist computer programs are just as good. His school began using a computer model after some students, mostly girls, objected to dissection. ''We don't force kids to dissect,'' said Gwin, head of the science department. ''We know some kids have bad feelings about doing it.'' Betsie McLaughlin, a senior at Triton Regional, sympathizes with classmates who can't stomach dissections. ''I think it's a great thing to have hands-on experience, to touch and be there,'' she said. ''I'm looking into going into a science field. For those not looking, they shouldn't have to cut up a frog or a pig when you have the technology now to do otherwise on a computer.'' With or without a bill, dissection as a teaching tool in middle and high school may be on its last legs. In the Boston public schools, it is being de-emphasized, said Ann Hamadeh, program director for science. Science course work has been reconfigured to fit the material covered on the state's standardized test, she said, and the approach to biology has more to do with the study of molecular structure and environmental and ecological subjects. Some teachers also object to dissection out of respect for life, Gwin said. The Humane Society of the United States estimates that 6 million vertebrates are dissected every year, of which 3 million are frogs. ''When you look across the world and realize amphibians are disappearing because of acid rain, it seems silly to purchase over 100 frogs to dissect,'' he said. This story ran on page A01 of the Boston Globe on 2/5/2000. © Copyright 2000 Globe Newspaper Company. [ Send this story to a friend | Easy-print version | Add to Daily User ]