Required Practical 5

• Describe any precautions that should be followed when performing a dissection:

  • Cover any cuts with a waterproof dressing
  • When using a scalpel cut away from body
  • Disinfect surfaces/ equipment
  • If poisonous chemicals or toxins involved work in a well ventilated environment
• Suggest an ethical consideration when dissecting animals

  • Morally wrong to kill animals just for dissection
  • So use animals for dissection that have already been killed for meat
• Describe how you could prepare a temporary mount of a piece of plant tissue for observation with an optical microscope:

  1. Add drop of water to glass slide
  2. Obtain a thin section of specimen and place on slide
  3. Stain (e.g. with potassium/iodine iodide to view starch)
  4. Lower coverslip at angle using mounted needle without trapping air bubbles