11 & 15 March: Creating a Guide to Rat Comparative Anatomy

Agenda for these two days...

To wrap-up the Anatomy Track we are going to prepare ourselves for the rat dissection that will occur at the end of the school year
- The dissection itself is optional, but everyone will prepare in the same way
Everyone has already been randomly assigned a group and body system(s)

Goals for 11 March:

Assemble the best images (photos or drawings) you can find to compare the organs in the rat (Rattus norvegicus) and human (Homo sapiens) systems. Try to get images that show the same organs in each species so you can place them side-by-side.
Research and describe the differences and similarities between the major organs and systems of the two species.
- Obviously, the rat is smaller than the human, but think of relative size of organs to overall body size.
- You can also talk about differences in function of organs, but your focus should be anatomical

Goals for 15 March:

Use your research to decide on the most important FOUR things that a student should be keeping an eye out for during the dissection.
Use your images and information to create a Guidebook (set of at least 4 Google Slides) that points out the important similarities and differences that students should be looking for during the dissection.
- This should help individuals doing the dissection to not only find and identify the major organs of interest, but also to relate them to our MANIKEN models

Example (skin/integumentary system):

- Slide 1: Image of external anatomy of both a rat and human in anatomical position, arrows noting areas with different hair/fur density (giving hairs per square cm for each area in each species)
- Slide 2: Close-up images of bottom or rat rear paw and human foot, arrows pointing to the thick skin "pads" (callouses) on each and a description of how the thick skin of both is hairless and similar in structure (layers)
- Slide 3: Histology images of cross sections of human and rat skin layers, noting similarities in number and types of layers, nerve endings, hair follicles, etc.
- Slide 4: Close-up images of face of human and rat, noting presence of whiskers in rat and a description of their sensory function and how they differ from regular hairs

LINK YOUR FINAL SLIDES HERE before the end of class on Monday 15 March