28 Fayetteville Teachers Receive Grant Funding for Supplies, Including Frogs, Rats

Avery Parker, right, and Golda Nunneley, both seventh-graders at Holt Middle School, react Thursday after getting squirted with frog fluids while dissecting it during science class in Fayetteville. Students in Amy Eversole science class at Holt were dissecting frogs and rats purchased as scientific equipment/supplies with a $15,000 grant from a group of science teachers from the Arkansas Community Foundation. For video, go to nwaonline.com/videos.
Avery Parker, right, and Golda Nunneley, both seventh-graders at Holt Middle School, react Thursday after getting squirted with frog fluids while dissecting it during science class in Fayetteville. Students in Amy Eversole science class at Holt were dissecting frogs and rats purchased as scientific equipment/supplies with a $15,000 grant from a group of science teachers from the Arkansas Community Foundation. For video, go to nwaonline.com/videos.

— Seventh-graders squealed “cool,” “gross” and “this is fun” while they examined the insides of frogs and rats last week in Amy Eversole’s science class at Holt Middle School.

Andrea Bird, 13, kept a safe distance while her partner, Victoria Nieto, 12, carved and snipped away at the specimen, affectionately named A&V Jr.

At A Glance

Science Mini-Grant

The Arkansas Community Foundation this year awarded 285 grants in the annual Science Initiative for Middle Schools program, which encourages hands-on instruction by providing money for materials for experiments. This year’s grants have paid for $107,000 in science materials for 34,000 students in classrooms throughout the state.

Source: Arkansas Community Foundation

“I don’t like frogs,” Andrea said, but she and other students quickly gathered around when Victoria cut open the amphibian’s stomach and found the remnants of a bug, indicating it was the frog’s last meal.

The students spent most of last week studying frog dissection. They watched a virtual demonstration before facing the real frog. Some students in the gifted and talented program cut open rats.

The dissection was made possible by the collaboration of 28 teachers at seven schools who landed a grant for science experiment supplies.

Students in Amy Eversole's science class at Holt Middle School in Fayetteville dissected frogs Thursday morning. The frogs were  purchased as scientific equipment/supplies  with a $15,000 grant obtained by a group of science teachers from the Arkansas Community Foundation.

Frog Dissection

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Some of the $15,000 grant from the Arkansas Community Foundation paid for the frogs.

The supplies are used in fifth- through eighth-grade science classes at Ramay and Woodland junior high schools; Holt, Owl Creek and McNair middle schools; and Butterfield Trail and Root elementary schools.

It used to be frogs were dissected by sophomores as was the case when Eversole was in high school.

“Curriculum requirements have moved down the grades,” she said. Seventh-graders, according to state standards, are taught about the systems in the human body, she said.

“With frogs, they actually see a similar system,” she noted. The students had a lab sheet to list the organs they found and removed and to record other observations.

Without the grant, the students would have done a virtual frog dissection, which isn’t as good as the real thing, Eversole said.

“This is much more meaningful,” she said. “My personal classroom budget wouldn’t cover getting the specimens along with the other needs.”

Students cut their frogs and rats on foam plates because Eversole said she couldn’t afford to buy the pins or dissecting trays. Students worked in pairs with one student holding the specimen while the other did the cutting.

Kennedy Hawkins, 12, scrunched up her face, saying, “It’s nasty” as lab partner Mabel Lowry, 12, said, “I guess it’s fun and interesting.”

“The virtual dissection doesn’t compare to the real thing,” said Jenny Gammill, director of K-12 science and instructional technology. “I stretch the science funds as far as I can but an opportunity like this would not exist without the grant.”

The grant came at a time when the school district is in the midst of stepping up its science program at all grade levels, Gammill said.

“The Arkansas Community Foundation realizes this type of learning has been missing from the classroom,” Gammill said. “I applaud the teachers for writing this grant. They want kids to have these kinds of experiences.”

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