Mrs. McMahon's 3rd and 6th period Anatomy and Physiology (A&P) classes at WCHS had the honor, on February 11th and February 17th respectively, of going to the Ohio State University Cadaver Lab.Attending the Cadaver Lab has been a highlight for A&P students for many years. Mrs. McMahon, who joined the Worthington Christian staff a few years ago, has been taking her students to the Cadaver Lab for the past two years. According to Mrs. McMahon, she takes her students to the Cadaver Lab because of her firm belief that “they can learn more from spending time with actual human bodies.”
Mrs. McMahon’s fun yet challenging teaching style has been helpful in preparing her students for an interactive experience with the human body. Through the various dissections the students have done in class, they were able to apply their previous knowledge of the anatomy of several mammals to the anatomy of a human body. In addition to seeing how different mammals’ organs compare to human organs, junior Mackenzie Clapper was also looking “forward to seeing how (the cadavers) look compared to what you see on TV.”
Once the students arrived at the Cadaver Lab, the most shocking initial observation was the immense stench of formaldehyde. The stench was so strong that many students like junior Amara Taranto “felt nauseous.”
After overcoming the overwhelming smell of the cadavers, the students were truly able to appreciate the intricacy of the human body. Although all the students had an introductory understanding of human organs, the Cadaver Lab gave them the opportunity to experience the cadavers in an interactive way.
One of Mrs. McMahon’s goals with taking her students to the Cadaver Lab was for them to see the size of different aspects of the human body. They achieved this goal as students had the opportunity to see a heart that had had a double bypass surgery, with the stitches still in it; and to see a cadaver cut off at the waist.
Some students, such as Brittany Wicker, took the learning experience to another level. As the students learned about the cadaver being cut off at the waist, Brittany enjoyed rubbing the cadaver’s head.
Although the goal of the trip to the Cadaver Lab was to interact with the details of the human body in person, the students also learned a few additional facts; for example, they discovered that Honda uses the cadavers of people under thirty as crash dummies, according to Amara Taranto.The Anatomy and Physiology classes’ field trip to the Cadaver Lab proves that learning can take place both inside and outside the classroom. Even though many of the students felt perturbed by the initial smell of the cadavers, the overall consensus was that “the Cadaver Lab was really fun!”
