This paper highlights the voices and experiences of individuals who objected to animal dissection in their high school science and biology classes. The data were collected via online surveys , and 8 of these participants took part in more in-depth telephone interviews. Participants were former students from Ontario, Canada, who discussed their experiences with animal dissection in general, and objection to dissection in particular, if applicable. The findings reveal that students who expressed objection to dissection experienced a range of teacher (...) responses, including pressure to participate, the request to join another group of students and watch, the choice to use a dissection alternative, warnings of compromised grades, and other responses. The study points to the importance of choice policies to ensure that dissection alternatives are available in classrooms. In this way, students can select among different options of how they would like to learn, and teachers can be prepared to accommodate those who choose not to dissect. (shrink)

Although at first glance it may seem an unlikely alliance, frogs and cyberfrogs certainly benefit from an unusual friendship that connects the virtual world of dissection simulation and the physical realm of nonhuman animal advocacy.This paper focuses on the symbiotic relationship of dissection simulation designers and animal advocates. Dissection simulation manufacturers benefit from this relationship through the purchasing and promotion of their products by animal advocacy organizations, and also they benefit from policy changes that encourage the use of dissection simulations (...) as alternatives to dissection. Reciprocally,animal advocacy organizations benefit by saving animal lives, gaining a new tool for convincing teachers to stop dissecting, and demonstrating that they are a pro-technology movement. The knowledges and values embedded in cyberfrogs make them both boundary objects and cyborgs. (shrink)