Students in grades two through four at The Liberty School had a hands-on science lesson Monday when they dissected dogfish sharks with the help of teachers and parents.
No evidence of squeamishness was apparent as they wore gloves and masks to cut into the thick, sand-papery skin of the sharks with scissors and scalpels.
Parents and teachers were aided by Dr. Nicole Pinkerton, a Durango gynecologist, and Mike Gardner, a taxidermist, who said the specimens he usually handles are skulls of bear, mountain lions, deer and elk that hunters bring him.
The dissection was part of the oceanography segment of teacher Pam Savage’s science class. She coordinates the programs for gifted students.
Students who brought a container and rubbing alcohol were able to take home parts of dissected sharks or a baby shark removed from a female pregnant at the time she fell prey to an ocean trawler.
“I’m going to show-and-tell,” said Elliyah Hawbaker, 7, who was there with mom, Christin, to see brother, Ezra, a Liberty School third-grader. Elliyah is home-schooled, but it’s a safe bet that no other student is going to have a shark’s brain, eyeball and gill to talk about at the Durango School District 9-R shared school, which offers enrichment classes that aren’t easily taught at home.
“I’m here because my mother wants me to be here,” said Spencer Ethridge, who arrived with his grandparents, Hardy and Jana Collins, to see his brother, Milo, 8, a Liberty School third-grader.
Spencer attends Fort Lewis Mesa Elementary School, which had early release Monday.
Dana Fontenot, alerted to the dissection by a flier, arrived with daughters Maya Mouret and Amelia Mouret, who attend Riverview Elementary School.
“We all love science,” Fontenet said. “The girls don’t get grossed out about things like this.”
The sharks were acquired from Carolina Biological Supply Co. in Burlington, North Carolina, which supplies science equipment and animal specimens. Only schools can purchase the items, Savage said.
Dogfish sharks are found worldwide, particularly in temperate waters. Males can grow to slightly more than 3 feet and females to a little more than 5 feet.
They are fished for food, production of liver oil, fertilizer and, because of their cartilage-filled skull and manageable size, are popular dissection specimens in high schools and colleges.
The sharks Monday came prepared by the vendor with colored dyes to distinguish biological systems – blue in the veins, red in the arteries and yellow in the liver.
Before dissection began, Savage asked students to identify specific fins by name and decide whether they had a boy shark or a girl shark. Boys have claspers, girls, cloacas.
Once they cut through the tough skin, the 12 Liberty School students and around eight visitors found livers, brains, eyeballs, hearts, uteri, stomachs, gills, jaws and eggs of sharks-to-be.
They reduced the interior organs even further. Inside one stomach they found a small shark that apparently had been a meal for a larger one.
Students dissected sharks in 2010 and two years ago dissected squid.
The Liberty School, founded seven years ago, has 24 students, ages 8 to 13. All are dyslexic, mentally gifted or as they say on the campus, twice exceptional – gifted and dyslexic.
daler@durangoherald.com
