GREAT FALLS — The best way to learn is with hands on experience, and that’s exactly what students at Great Falls High School did on Thursday, with a Halloween twist.
On Kassie Dixon’s whiteboard, she asks students not to wear costumes to class. Turns out, she had something in mind.
“Students are making a wound,” said Dixon, a biology teacher at Great Falls High School. “But after that they are working together, and my anatomy and physiology students are teaching the ceramics students how wounds heal.”
With just a few simple ingredients red Vaseline, cocoa powder, and tissues, students got to make and see what realistic gashes and burns would look like on an arm.
“Yeah, I think they look really, really cool. Although my hands are a little bit stained,” said Alysha, a ceramics student in class.
The lab brought together two classes, as Anatomy & Physiology students worked with Ceramics students to create the wounds.
“Some people might think that Anatomy & Physiology is just kind of like a strict class, you just sit and learn, that’s all that you really go over, but it shows that there’s also fun things that you have, opportunities to do,” said Forest, a ceramics student. “It gives us the opportunity to learn more as a ceramics student but also still have that little fun bit where we like to just create things.”
Braedon, an A&P student, felt it added to the lab experience.
“We’re doing them so we can basically see what it looks like in real life,” Braedon said.
This is the second year Dixon has hosted the lab, and she loves how it is remembered by the students.
“For high school kids, the grosser the better,” Dixon said. “Like, if they get disgusted by this, they’re gonna remember it forever.”
