Brain Dissection!

Last Friday I got the privilege of assisting Emma Jane's science teacher with brain dissection at Mayo.  We dissected sheep brains.  The students were very excited (and so was I).

You can read about our new Mayo here, or the last day at our old Mayo here.  This new building is such an amazing place.  I was so happy to be here in this building and share this moment with the fourth and fifth grade Armstrongs.  

This is Mrs. Power.  She is talking about the two hemispheres of the brain and how they control opposite sides of the body.  We love Mrs. Power!!!

Here are the brains waiting on the anxious children...er..I mean the anxious children waiting on the brains.

We learned about the cerebrum, cerebellum, brain stem, corpus collosum, sulci and gyri.  The two grown ups dissected the dura mater off of the brains.  It was too tough to cut through.

Then we let the kids cut down the midline and look for the landmarks.  

We learned about what each part of the brain is responsible for.  Did you know the brainstem is responsible for the functions necessary for survival such as breathing, digestion, heart rate and blood pressure?  Of course you did...

I got pretty excited because during one dissection we found the olfactory bulbs still intact, as well as a few of the cranial nerves. 

Look at that studious girl...

Truth be told, she was a little grossed out by the smell but she got through it.

One group of kids even had snack during this class.  Those kids are tough as nails...

Thank you Mrs. Power for letting me come to your class and dissect dura mater and talk about the pituitary gland and how the surgeons get to the pituitary gland and look at MRI's and take pictures of your amazing students and create a very good example of a run on sentence that would make Lucy Piper's head explode!

Addendum:  Right as I was cleaning up from the brain dissection and the students were lining up for lunch I got a call that Lucy was throwing up downstairs.  I ran down to the office and she was sitting there all puny looking and pale.  She must have eaten something bad because she vomited a couple of more times and then was better after a nap.  She was happy and back to herself by dinner time.  She announced that she was hungry and we all sat down to dinner that night.  I asked the girls about their day.

Emma said she got to have ice cream with Madeline.

Lucy said she learned a new song at school.

I said "I saw Lucy throw up and a dead sheep's brain."

(And if you missed the joke, you can read why I thought this was an appropriate answer here.)