Frog External Anatomy - Teacher's Guide

Original Document: Frog External Anatomy

This lab is a good starter lab for the frog. It's short and allows the teacher to talk about general principles of dissection, rules, and clean-up protocols. This usually takes students about 20-30 minutes to complete. Students should wear safety goggles, latex gloves are optional.

The hardest part for students is opening the jaw, you really must apply a lot of pressure to force the jaw open, this is usually accompanied by the sound of bone cracking.

For whatever reasons, students are fascinated by the eyes. I included the statement "you may remove the eye" because so many of my students in the past have asked if its okay to do so. And yes, the frog eyes do bounce (a little) and they are hard to the touch, not squishy like you might imagine.

Student guide has checkboxes, it is helpful for students to check the boxes as they complete the dissection to keep them on task and at the appropriate step.

Students can also view images of the frog as an alternative to doing this in class.