Released 12/16/2009

In science class, chicken wings are on the menu

By Andrew Seguin

“Ladies, this is a good lab for using all three tools,” teacher Mike Clancy advised.

Given that his Class 6 students’ lab trays were filled with chicken wings, you might think the tools in question were a wet-nap, celery spear and tub of blue cheese. But as the class was dissecting the wings — this is a science course, after all — the instruments required were a little more technical: blunt probe, forceps and scissors.

Class 6 science focuses on human anatomy. To help them understand the structure of their own bodies, the girls study the structures of other animals. Before even beginning the dissection, the students compared the shape of the chicken wing to their own arms and noticed, for example, that the wings have a joint much like a human elbow.

Then they took on the hard part.

Removing the skin cleanly was the first step in the dissection, and the girls learned that it takes a deft touch to separate it from the subcutaneous fat below it. Still, they had to do it right in order to get a better look at the wings’ cartilage, muscles, tendons and ligaments.

“We’ve dissected a cow bone, but this is way harder because of the skin,” one student said.

Throughout the process, the students took notes, pulled on muscles and joints and made conjectures about what they were seeing, which was nothing short of the incredible complexity of a moving body.

Photo Gallery: Class 6 dissects chicken wings