This past week,the Ben Porat Yosef eighth grade students got to perform their first dissection of the year. Students worked in pairs to examine the internal and external organs of an earthworm, learning the techniques used in laboratories that are used in high school and beyond. Students were given a talk about safety and how to properly handle scalpels, dissecting scissors and dissecting pins before opening up their specimens. They then worked to sketch the inside of the worm so they could understand where certain organs were located. This is their first dissection of the year, giving them a baseline idea of animal anatomy. Students will move up the tree of life to squids, crustaceans, frogs and even a mink, and they will get a better understanding of how complex organisms evolved from common ancestors.