About 70 third-grade students got the chance to touch a heart last week during a popular and unique sheep-heart-dissection program at Iles Elementary School.
Now in its fifth year, the lesson, started by third-grade teacher David Morgan, provides students a hands-on look at the heart's structure and why it's important to keep it healthy.
"At the beginning, it was very rudimentary, with the use of paper plates, and masking tape was placed on razor blades with only one-eighth of the blade showing," Morgan said, noting that he got the hearts in the early years from Turasky Meats.
Now, with help from the Prairie Heart Institute, students are provided gowns and protective eyewear. And Springfield High School loans Iles classes dissecting trays and scalpels.
Over the years, the dissection lesson became popular, prompting the school to expand it. All three third-grade classes at Iles take part now.
Two Springfield physicians, Dr. Randolph S. Martin, a cardiologist, and Dr. Frank Mikell, an interventional cardiologist with Prairie Cardiovascular, lead the program with help from anatomy teacher Cathy Turner's 25 students from Springfield High School.
"Working together, we are able to show students hands-on the parts of the heart, which is fun way for them to learn," Martin said.
"We teach them about the importance of a healthy diet by directly seeing a heart," said Donna Shepherd, third-grade teacher.
The program continues to be a hit with students.
"You got to see the actual aorta instead of on paper," said Sammie Morris, a third-grader.
"I got to see that there was fat on the outside of the heart," added classmate Nicholas Herron.
The sheep hearts were funded this year by a donation from Dr. Mikell, who sees the importance of the program.
"Dissecting a sheep's heart translates what they are reading to a direct anatomic lesson," he said.
On the Net:
KIDS HEALTH: Your heart and circulatory system
HOW STUFF WORKS: Your heart
Above Photo: Todd Smith / The State Journal-Register -- Dr. Randolph S. Martin, Springfield cardiologist, shows students the areas of the heart.
