The senior and junior students dissecting sheep brains were able to do so through the newly-instituted Anatomy and Physiology course at Jamestown Public Schools. Superintendent Bret Apthorpe has previously been vocal about aligning the district’s curriculum with college and career readiness. Apthorpe even visited the classroom during dissection.

Aligning Jamestown’s curriculum with that of the local employment field and college institutions has been prioritized since Apthorpe held a community meeting a year ago in March 2018. Inside the Robert H. Jackson Center, he spoke about ensuring Jamestown students were graduating ready to join the local workforce or attend college. Much of that focus has been on manufacturing, which makes up the majority of employers in the area. Another primary focus has been healthcare. An additional class being offered with the same intention is Intro to Health Sciences.

“It’s a step in the right direction,” said Amy Siderits, JHS teacher.

Prior to any cutting into vital organs began, Siderits said the new course she teaches is often taught in college as a “weed out class,” meaning students find out if they can literally make the cut.

“I’d rather have them know now if they’re cut for it than later,” she said of the course’s lesson plan and hands on dissection.

While the JHS course is not college accredited, it does serve as a precursor for some students seeking healthcare careers. Now, the interested students will know if they’re capable of dissecting animal organs and body parts before ever paying tuition for a college course.

The JHS class is currently studying the nervous system and the human brain.

“We can’t exactly dissect human brains, so we’re going to substitute with sheep brains,” Siderits said.

While human and sheep brains are different, all mammalian brains have similarities in terms of its basic structure, according to Siderits. Students were tasked with identifying the brain’s parts and structures during class Thursday.

The students in the anatomy class have previously dissected frogs and worms. Later in the year, students will dissect a sheep eyeball, a heart, a kidney and fetal pigs. The Physiology and Anatomy course takes students through all 11 body systems.

The course is offered through JHS’s Academy of Pre-Medicine and Health Science. Siderits, who serves on the board of the academy, said the district instructed the board to begin offering more courses that will benefit students after they graduate.

“For a lot of them it’s just that, giving them that first exposure to potentially what they’re going to be doing in the future,” Siderits said.

She believes the course will help potential college students when they take a more advanced course in the future, if they choose a related career path. Potential career paths and college majors that have to pass an anatomy course include nursing, occupational therapy, physical education, health teachers and all medical fields. For seniors Kendra Nickerson and Emily Crasti, the course was serving just that.

Both Nickerson and Crasti were excited about the impending dissection just before class began Thursday. For them, dissection days are their favorite lessons in Anatomy and Physiology.

“It puts a visual to what were learning in class,” Nickerson said. “A lot of time it’s just notes and (Siderits) explaining things to us and then when we actually get to do the dissection we connect two and two together.”

Nickerson plans on pursuing radiology or nursing and Crasti intends on majoring in physical therapy, all majors the current course will complement.

“This whole class has helped,” Crasti said.