This week, the Omega Science Lab dissected a frog in groups. As we cut through the skin, the first thing we saw was a layer of muscle. At first, we thought that it was more skin. Then Mrs.Russeau confirmed that it was muscle. Once we cut throught the muscle, we saw a clump of Fat Bodies under the liver. It looked like strands of spaghetti all tied together at the base. Above that, we saw the 3 parts of the liver. The right lobe, left anterior and poterior lobes. The liver looked a dark pea green and was the largest structure we saw. After all, the liver is not an organ in the digestive system. Then we pushed the frogs arms back to see the heart. The heart caused some confusion in my group. Some people including me thought that an astray lung was the heart. The others thought that a white triangular structure was the heart. I disagreed because I thought the heart would be red from blood. The next thing we searched for was the gallbladder and the spleen. The gallbladder was under the liver and looked like a oversized, squashed pea.
The spleen was resistant when we poked it., Unlike the gallbladder and oviducts, it was hard and firm. We checked to see if there was still blood inside, but there wasn't. After that, we thought that our frog was a male since we didn't see any eggs stright away. Mrs.Russeau came again and lifted the stomach and intestines to show us that there were eggs in our frog. Our frogs eggs looked like little beads surrounded in a grayish whitish paste(below). We had to get rid of the eggs to see the oviducts and intestines. The oviducts looked like tiny intestines near the sides of the frog. There was a large j-shaped organ we confirmed to be the stomach. The stomach was connected to a long narrow tube that was the small intestine. We broke the strands that held the small intestine together to see exactly how long it was. Then at it's end, we saw a swollen tube that
we knew was the large intestine. We decided to cut open the stomach and the intestines to see if there was any food or waste still in there. The stomach and the small intestine were empty, but we got to feel the ridges in the stomach. The ridges were of different shapes and sizes. We struck gold when we opened the large intestine. There was a greenish paste we knew was waste. Lastly, we examined the lungs. They were dark, shriveled and flat since there wasn't any air inside. They were located behind, and under the liver. Another great day in the Omega Science Lab.
