School uses synthetic frogs for dissection; real frogs leap for joy

COMMENTARY few classmates were strangely intrigued by the prospect of poking around inside a frog’s belly.

They went on to be doctors or medical researchers. The rest of us went on to lesser careers that did not require smelling formaldehyde.

That educational rite of passage may be ending, which is good for many reasons. Perhaps the only downside is future generations won’t be able to share their icky dissection stories.

That means they won’t be able to joke about what happened with the cadavers of the frogs and cats when dissection lessons were over.

More than one frog ended up as a hood ornament in the student parking lot. I heard of a teacher who routinely staged a cat cadaver costume contest.

Students would dress up their specimens as football players, beauty queens or the principal. I’ll admit I still have to stifle a laugh at the thought of a line of dead cats imitating the Radio City

Rockettes.

Note to today’s youth — Be Better!

Even a frog deserves death with dignity. In fact, dissected frogs don’t deserve death at all.

“Frogs are cruelly stolen from their homes in the wild and are killed specifically for dissection in classrooms,” according to PETA.

We shouldn’t equate frogs with the Lindbergh baby, but PETA alarmists have a point with this one. Frogs have been around for millions of years, providing a nightly chorus of croaking along rivers and lakes as the sun sets.

There were so many along the Nile River ancient Egyptians depicted the god of fertility as a frog named Heqet. Centuries later, Jim Henson depicted a frog named as Kermit as the lead Muppet, and millions of kids had an amphibian hero.

Kermit’s still around, but more than 200 frog species have vanished since 1970. Researchers fear many more will become extinct due to habitat loss, disease, commercial trade and pollution.

Frogs help the ecosystem hum along, acting as predators and as prey. Scientists can gauge the health of rivers, ponds and marshes by the croaking.

“If they go silent, there could be bad stuff happening,” Christopher J. Raxworthy, a herpetologist at the American Museum of Natural History, told the New York Times.

PETA estimates 10 million animals are dissected annually in the U.S. The impact of dissection on the frog population is debatable. Even if it’s minimal, PETA says it “can foster callousness and insensitivity toward animals and nature.”

I suppose dressing a dead cat as Richard Nixon to win a costume contest qualifies. PETA has videos of a teacher juggling dead frogs and students using cat intestines as a jump rope.

Now along comes SynFrog, the life-like model. It’s manufactured by SynDaver, which manufacturers all sorts of pretend animals, human body parts and various accessories.

Synthetic and virtual cadavers are the future of dissection. Who knew it would arrive first in Pasco County?

“We are excited to announce that Mitchell High School is the first in the world to use SynFrogs in science labs,” Superintendent of Schools Kurt Browning proclaimed in a statement.

A SynFrog costs $150, but it’s reusable and more economical than real frogs, which cost $5 to $15. There also are benefits money can’t buy.

“Kids are involved,” J.W. Mitchell Principal Jessica Schultz said. “They are finger deep in frog guts, but it’s all synthetic, so the smell isn’t there, the stigma isn’t there.”

You know what else won’t be there? The stories.

Call it one small step for man, one giant leap for frogs that might have become hood ornaments.