Shark Dissection a Jaw-Dropping Experience for Sandburg Upward Bound Math-Science Students
Aaron Frey
Friday, April 9, 2021 3:26 PM
Campus News
Galesburg, IL
When Kayla Pinedo’s mother asked her about the large package that unexpectedly arrived at their house, she wasn’t quite sure how to respond.
“I didn’t know how to say, ‘Mom, it’s a baby shark’ in Spanish,’” Pinedo said, laughing. “It was a strange experience.”
Pinedo and other students in Carl Sandburg College’s TRIO Upward Bound Math-Science (UBMS) program received such a package last October as they dissected a dogfish shark in their homes. For Pinedo’s mom, it took seeing it to believe it.
“I opened the box in front of her just to prove it,” said Pinedo, a senior at Monmouth-Roseville High School. “She was terrified, but she also saw it as a really cool opportunity. Actually taking the shark out of the bag, I think, was one of the coolest experiences.”
RELATED: Read this story and others like it in the 2021 edition of "Sandburg"
The dissection was a group activity for students in UBMS, a federally funded program that assists high school students in achieving academic success, developing them into well-rounded citizens and helping them transition into college. Sandburg’s UBMS program serves select students at Abingdon-Avon, Galesburg, Knoxville, Monmouth-Roseville and ROWVA high schools.
The group typically meets in person one Saturday a month for a collaborative activity, college visit or informational presentation on a topic to prepare them for college. Those opportunities had been limited for the past year because of COVID-19 until Sandburg UBMS program director Stephanie Woodard discovered this exercise through OSF Jump Simulation in Peoria. The group met on Zoom while students followed a guided video to dissect the shark from the confines of their homes.
“It was something that we wanted to do to give the students a hands-on opportunity where we could all still do something together,” Woodard said, “even if we weren’t physically together.”
Each kit included a shark that was about 2-3 feet long, a mat to rest it on, an apron, tweezers, scissors and pins to hold the shark’s skin to the mat. Max Martinez, a sophomore at Galesburg High School who plans to study biology and go to medical school, said the project was “right up my alley.” It also helped fill in something that he had been missing through remote learning.
“One thing I’ve really missed about my science classes is we don’t have labs or anything like that. We just watched the teacher do it, so we never get a hands-on experience,” Martinez said. “This was really cool because it was the first time in a while I got to do something like this.”
At one point, students were instructed to remove one of the shark’s eyes. When Martinez went to scoop out his, it popped out and rolled under his stove.
“It was really gross but kind of cool,” Martinez said. “It was like a marble.”
Students measured the shark from nose to fin, cut the sides of the jaw of to inspect the mouth and teeth, then worked their way down the belly. Some even pulled fish skeletons out of the stomach of their shark.
“My friends that are not in UBMS were absolutely jealous,” Pinedo said. “They actually wanted to come over during the dissection process, and I had to tell them, ‘No, trust me. You do not want to come to my house right now. It smells absolutely horrid.’”
Despite the fumes of formalin, some students had family members in the house who wanted to take part — or at least view from a distance. Martinez noted his younger sisters, ages 8 and 5, wanted to touch the shark and feel how slimy it was. Others had their cats jump up on the table to see what the fuss (or perhaps just the smell) was about.
“To be able to hear somebody’s little sibling come in and say, ‘What are you doing?’ and then you hear the student trying to explain it to their sibling, that was really cool,” Woodard said.
Pinedo, who plans to attend Sandburg this fall and go into nursing, said it was an experience that will stick with her — for more reasons than her mom refusing to use the dining room table for three days after the dissection.
“I love being able to see the anatomy of animals and humans, and it was really cool to think that I’m getting a head start, I’m able to do something that other students also pursuing nursing wouldn’t normally be able to do,” Pinedo said. “I had a lot of fun, and it’s definitely a memory of (UBMS) that I’ll remember for quite a while.”
To learn more about Sandburg’s TRIO Upward Bound Math-Science program, call 309.341.5228 or visit sandburg.edu/UBMS.
