7th grade science: ‘You have to get students interested’

When Hoa Hasselroth took over 7th Grade Science, she knew she wanted to make it more hands-on. 

“Nobody wants to know about mitosis and meiosis,” teacher Hoa Lesselroth said after helping her students complete a sheep heart dissection. “You have to get students interested. You have to hook them. They need to be able to know what’s going on with diseases, because that’s what they care about.”

The sheep dissection was part of a unit on the organ system. 

Students paired up at their desks and got to work on the hearts. There are no lab stations, just pans and scalpels on desks, with parent volunteers close by to help supervise.

Students were intensely focused on their task as the lesson unfolded, seeing the diagrams in their science textbooks come to life.  

When the students got to their systems unit, they repeated the procedure with a rat dissection. 

What they’re doing with the current middle school building is working. But Lesselroth is overjoyed by the thought of the curriculum she could grow with a proper lab space, which will be possible with a reimagined Middle School space. 

“These kids right now are at that age where I think you can excite them about science,” she says. “I think this is where it’s at.”