Using a Fresh Mammalian Heart in Learning-Cycle Laboratory

 

Ann O. Wilke

Tested Studies in Laboratory Teaching, 1995, Volume 16

Abstract

This abstract describes the use of fresh beef hearts as the first exploratory activity in a laboratory on the structure and function of the heart (Wilke, l993a, 1993b). On examining the heart with sight and touch and by running water into its vessels, students develop structure-function concepts such as the heart has two separate flow pathways and each pathway flows unidirectionally. In additional activities, students explore detailed heart structure in preserved whole and preserved frontally-sectioned hearts. They determine the structural details that explain the observed flow patterns in the fresh heart.

Keywords:  physiology, dissection, heart

Emory University (1994)