Written by BISP Year 6 Students Elias and Miranda

The BISP Year 6 students recently had the incredible but slightly daunting opportunity to dissect a pig’s heart for our learning. During the day, we went to the Secondary science lab and were met by the Secondary science teachers Mr. Terry and Ms. Jennings. They explained how to safely use the tools and equipment. Finally, it was our turn to dissect the pig’s heart.

We have been learning about the human heart as part of our topic unit and the important role it carries out in our body. We were also learning about the parts of the heart and their purpose. For learning purposes, we were able to dissect a pig’s heart. We were dissecting a pig’s heart because the pig’s heart is similar in its make up to the human heart. We used the knowledge that we learned in class to find the different parts of the heart.  

We learned how to tell the different parts of a heart and how the deoxygenated blood makes its way around the heart and into the lungs to reoxygenate itself. We also learned what the human heart would have looked like. This was the first time the BISP Year 6’s had cut open a heart.

This experience was very hands-on and very informative. This was a very different method of learning but most of the year sixes loved this activity. We were amazed and disgusted but we would definitely do this activity again.