This week, the anatomy classes have been all eyes and ears–mostly eyes. Students have been experiencing an animal eyeball from the outside in as they’ve been led through an intriguing dissection.

“The day before, students walked through an online dissection and now they’re doing the real thing in student groups,” anatomy teacher Greg Christensen said. “The eyeball dissection coincides with the section we’re studying in our course right now.”

The mood in the room is apprehensively anxious as unsure students are wary about the experiment and what to expect. Tentatively approaching the tray of slimy white spheres, the strong-stomached students pick up their instruments and attempt to dichotomize the eye. Given the choice of whether to participate or not, some students opt to look on rather than to pick up the scalpel themselves.

“There were too many people–it was too crowded around the eye, so I sat out,” senior Samantha Fink said.

The students who did act the surgeon part had mixed feelings about it. While most of them dove in and completed the dissection with peaked interest, some decided that anatomization was not for them, adopting the role of the observer partway through.

The lab took a particularly unexpected direction for senior Riley Bevan, who was splattered with eyeball juice on his salmon-pink shirt as he prodded the eye in an attempt to complete the directions.

“I didn’t think the eye would be so juicy, so I didn’t expect it at all when it exploded onto my shirt,” senior Riley Bevan said. “I had to walk out of the experiment when that happened.”

While the lab provoked mixed emotions across the board, most students agree that dissections can be a valuable experience.

“I think the dissection was really interesting for the people who aren’t grossed out by that type of thing, but for me personally, I learned better from the pictures,” senior Rebecca Bradley said.