Fifth graders get glimpse into surgical world

WORLAND - Worland students in Vanessa Keller's fifth-grade classes took part in a surgical unit last week learning about organ donation, surgery, optometry and neurosurgery.

Each quarter, Keller transforms her room into something fun and educational for her students.

This quarter it was surgery.

On Monday the students learned all about organ and blood donation. 

Tuesday and Wednesday: The surgical teams rotated through four different surgical centers. Optometry/ Veterinary Clinic, Organ Transplant, Neurosurgery (specifically the nerves in the brain and mouth) and Cardiac Clinic. 

With Optometry Keller said, "We focused on the parts and functions of the eye and compared the human eye to various animal eyes. The students then got themselves familiar with the cow eye dissection process by going through the functional text brochure- reading the step by step directions and checking for comprehension."

This would be of importance on Thursday when the students in groups dissected a cow's eye, removing the cornea, lens and vitreous fluid.

With the organ transplant center the students used our learned knowledge and context clues to try and figure out which part of the body was being donated in the transplant center. There were also real photographs from a trauma center and the students had to infer which body part was in need of an operation and had to support their claims with evidence.

"This got messy and we learned which students are cut out for the medical field in their futures or not," Keller said.

Under the neurosurgery unit students learned all about the brain and focused on the nervous system.

"I tied it into dental surgery as well since an oral surgeries have to be cognizant of the nerves that can be potentially affected. Once they answered all of the questions, they were given the small dental tooth mirrors to try to crack some secret codes that were written upside down and backward," Keller said.

In the cardiac clinic students learned all about the human heart and then had to dig their hands into a "heart transplant" cooler to pull out task cards to answer questions relating to non-fiction text features such as identifying and understanding the purpose table of contents, index, diagrams and more, Keller said.

"The kids worked so hard and had fun while doing it. Many didn't even realize how much work they were actually doing. If I would have thrown down a stack of worksheets that big and told them to complete it, there would have been many groans and complaints. While in the surgical center with the hospital noises on repeat and when students dressed the part, these fifth graders exceeded all expections," Keller said.