The course map.
Eight units — a progressive dissection ladder — the labs that anchor them, and the two-day rhythm that runs every week of the semester. This is the planner’s view — the whole course on one page.
Two days a week, and the work between them.
Every unit runs on the same rhythm: Concept Day → [student works at home] → Experiment Day → [student synthesizes at home] → next Concept Day. One day forces a choice between depth and breadth; two days allow both. More than two crowds out the at-home work where integration actually happens.
Concept Day
- Arrival & warm-up — reconnect with the prior session
- Pre-lecture discussion — surface what the at-home reading raised
- Direct instruction — micro-lectures, worked problems, demonstrations
- Guided practice — rehearse the technique & the procedure, solo or in pairs
- Misconception sweep & wrap-up — correct common errors, preview the lab
Guide's role: Socratic and diagnostic. Student's role: active participation; pre-reading required.
Experiment Day
- Pre-lab briefing — the question, the procedure, the safety
- Safety check — goggles, gloves, sharps & scalpel handling; explicit, every time
- Setup — trays, instruments, specimen, partner assignment
- Execution — the lab itself; the guide circulates and coaches
- Debrief & lab notebook — completed before the student leaves
- Cleanup & specimen & sharps disposal — to standard; non-negotiable
Guide's role: safety officer first, teacher second. Student's role: the lab notebook is THE artifact — predictions before results.
From the earthworm to the fetal pig.
The sequence is deliberate: each unit assumes the one before it. Click any unit to open its mastery rubric — the standard a student demonstrates against to advance.
| Unit | Big ideas | Anchor lab(s) | Integrates with |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 · Tools, Safety & the Ethics of Dissection | The dissection kit, sharps & scalpel safety, specimen care, and the ethics of using a real specimen | Kit handling, safety & specimen-care drill | The rise of dissection from Vesalius to the modern lab (history, reading); the ethics of specimen use; measuring & sketching to scale |
| 02 · The Earthworm | Segmentation and the annelid body plan; the first internal dissection | Earthworm dissection & segment survey | Cuvier and the founding of comparative anatomy (history, writing); ecology (soil & decomposition); drawing anatomy to scale |
| 03 · The Grasshopper | Arthropod anatomy, the exoskeleton, and mouthpart structure | Grasshopper dissection & mouthpart study | The diversity of the invertebrates (history, reading); entomology; comparing body plans across the ladder |
| 04 · The Clam or Squid | The mollusk body plan; soft-bodied anatomy and organ layout | Clam or squid dissection & organ survey | Owen and the naming of “homology” (history, writing); marine biology; mapping organs to function |
| 05 · The Perch | The first vertebrate; fins, gills, and a survey of the fish’s organ systems | Perch dissection & fin/organ survey | The move from invertebrate to vertebrate (history, reading); ichthyology; comparing the fish fin to limbs further up the ladder |
| 06 · The Frog | Amphibian organ systems; a full survey of vertebrate organs in a familiar specimen | Frog dissection & organ-system survey | The frog as the classic teaching specimen (history, writing); physiology; comparing organ systems across vertebrates |
| 07 · The Fetal Pig | Mammalian organ systems; the most complex specimen and the closest to human anatomy | Fetal-pig dissection & full organ-system survey | Darwin and the homology of bones from fin to trotter to hand (history, reading, writing); mammalian physiology; systematic organ mapping |
| 08 · Comparative Anatomy & the Dissection Defense | Homology across the ladder, common descent, and the synthesis of everything dissected | Comparative-anatomy synthesis & dissection defense | From Cuvier and Owen to Darwin’s tree of life (history, writing); evolutionary biology; the evidence for common descent |
Every unit carries the core spokes — History, Reading, and Writing — anchored to the story in the integration guide. The column above names each unit’s distinctive spokes; geography and soft social studies run where they fit, and students pick from elective spokes (data, ethics, economics, technology, art). An applied-math lane runs through every unit too — math used in service of the science, never as a separate program.
Where mastery gets proven in person.
Three times across the semester, the student steps up to a demonstration that cannot be faked, outsourced, or generated. These are the AI-proof core of the course — understanding, shown in real time, against a rubric, in front of a guide.
Dissection defense
Complete a clean dissection and defend every choice — the incision, the technique, and each structure you identify — out loud, under questions.
Timed structure identification
Locate and name specified structures on a dissected specimen — accurately, and under time pressure.
Oral lab-notebook defense
Walk a guide through your own notebook: the question, the method, the data, the anomalies, the interpretation.