FROG DISSECTION MANUAL
--- a content rich, teacher written self-paced guide
suitable for middle and high school students
by Keith Wilhelmi

 Teacher’s Guide    Vocabulary included in the guide    Thumbnail overview of the guide    Sample pages from the guide    About the author   Contact the author   Purchase the Guide 

Middle and high school science teachers, are you hesitant to incorporate (or continue using) a frog dissection unit? Do any of the following statements reflect your feelings?

"I’m not really that comfortable with the dissecting steps and anatomical parts / functions!"

"It’s just too exhausting an activity -- so many detailed steps to describe and supervise!"

"It’s too tough to keep all of the students happy. Some students are rarin’ to move on, while others need constant guidance!"

"I’m not sure the students even make the connections between the frog and the human!"

I’m betting that my guide will change your feelings about this very powerful unit. The steps are so detailed and the illustrations so clear that students - working in small teams - will enjoy teaching themselves. The connections between the frog and the human anatomy and physiology are continually pointed out. YOUR time will be spent hearing students "ooh and aaah" (and "ugh" a few times) - and enjoying guiding individuals.

I'm in my 29th year of teaching Life Science to middle school students - and still find the frog dissection unit to be one of my favorites. About 20 years ago I decided that walking entire classes through this activity - step by step - was just too exhausting, so I put the first version of this self-paced guide on paper. This "final version" is the result of years of noting the stumbling blocks and revising the instructions.

In summer of 2005 I decided that the weakest link was the illustrations I'd been using, so I produced my own drawings. I copyrighted my work and decided to spread the wealth - while trying to create a little for myself! I admit that having some unexpected family medical expenses helped motivate me – but I'm confident you'll find "Keith Wilhelmi's Self-Paced Frog Dissection Guide" to be well worth the money!

I think you’ll be impressed with the level of detail – twenty-seven 8½×11 sheets of text and fourteen sheets of large frog illustrations! Your students will be able to read and follow the exact steps for each stage of dissection. Along the way they’ll learn about the anatomy and physiology of the key frog organs and the corresponding human organs. For easier reading, the text pages consist primarily of short paragraphs which are separated by blank lines. For a small number of the more challenging terms I created a "pronunciation guide" after the word: i.e. cloaca (klo ā´kuh).

You’ll note that my frog illustrations (and their labels) are BIG. I created these after years of dealing with difficult to interpret diagrams from other sources. I also provide a set of unlabeled illustrations that might come in handy during test preparation.

Continue to Thumbnail overview of the guide

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