Advanced Chemistry Teaches Elementary Students about Cow Eyeballs

Theodore Weiss, Senior Reporter

Fourth grade includes a brief introduction to Christopher Columbus’s venture to the new world, a bit of coloring in between recesses, and, recently, eye dissection.

In the past few days, Mrs. Roberson’s advanced chemistry class taught fourth graders from both of MSSD14’s elementary schools how to properly dissect cow eyes; twice.

The high school students left during fourth-block advanced chemistry and headed down to Manitou Springs Elementary School on Thursday, November 5.

The elementary school students had already prepped for the dissection by diagraming all the parts of the eye when the high school students arrived. The diagrams were displayed throughout the halls of the elementary school.

Emily Dollof-Holt (11) was enthusiastic about teaching the young kids. She hoped that this experience could propel a student into going into a field of science. “I hope that the kids take away about the eye and learn about the eye. Maybe one of the kids will become an eye doctor because of it,” she said.

Mrs. Roberson’s class took three twenty-minute intervals to visit three different classrooms at the elementary school.

On Wednesday, November 11, fourth-grade students from Ute Pass Elementary School travelled down the pass to meet the advanced chemistry students. Once they arrived, during first block, they were also taught about the dissection of eyeballs.

The students took turns holding pieces of the eyes with expressions of disgust and interest on their faces.

The annual fourth-grade eye dissection will continue to be taught by high school

advanced chemistry classes in future years.