School district officials are taking steps to ensure animals involved in student experiments in a freshman honors biology class will be treated humanely after two freshmen raised concern during the school board’s April 22 meeting that the animals were being harmed.##M:[more]##
Two High School North students, Christie Dougherty and Lavanya Ganesh, presented the board with a petition signed by 400 students at both schools against alleged animal cruelty they said was taking place.
School officials say, however, that the student experiments that may cause harm to animals were not yet approved, and that students jumped ahead of themselves to embark on the projects, given the competitive nature of the district, to come up with ideas for projects before the deadline to submit their proposals and before the projects were approved.
According to Dougherty, students would be performing animal behavioral research on their own, and the projects were basically left up to the students to create and get approved. She said one example of a students’ proposed project included testing the “electrical components of dog collars on mice.”
“The mice are in the end, obviously going to die,” she said, comparing the size of dogs to mice, and saying they wouldn’t be able to sustain shocks at such magnitudes that a dog collar would produce. Another example included putting two Betta fish — a common household fish sold in pet stores, which are also known as Siamese fighting fish — in one tank, which would risk harm to one or both fish because the two fish would begin fighting each other. “What’s the difference between this project and the dog fights in the news?” she asked.
The two girls said some of the projects had already been approved by the teacher, Robert Corriveau, for the class. Ganesh alleged that the 14-year-old students were told they had the ability to do whatever they want for the project.
The girls also said they called the New Jersey American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty of Animals, which sent an officer to the school to investigate. They said the officer told them that because the students would be responsible for purchasing the animals, and performing most of the tests over a period of time at home, “if the student is doing something inhumane to the animals, the school is not going to take responsibility.”
Ganesh also said the girls were concerned that once the projects were completed, the students would turn the mice and other animals used for the experiments loose into environments with which they weren’t familiar.
The girls also said that “we found out from some of the other science students that some have ridiculed our names in other science classes,” Ganesh said.
“We are being ridiculed publicly by teachers for our beliefs,” Dougherty added.
The girls also presented pictures of dead mice that appeared to have been attacked or mangled, which the girls said came from one student, who had kept about 20 mice in one cage, leaving them to fight among themselves.
The girls also contacted the Humane Society in Washington, D.C. In response, a letter was sent to North Principal Michael Zapicchi from Heidi O’Brien, the director of outreach for the organization. In the letter, O’Brien states that “because harm to animals is likely, and students may work in partners and not know about the option to refuse, we feel that this project may violate New Jersey State Statute,” which allows students to refuse to participate in certain school activities relating to animal dissection.
Following the April 22 meeting, Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction Steven Mayer said the purpose of the projects is really just to understand how to observe animal behavior in a research context, and that it was never designed to manipulate animals and conduct experiments like the students described.
He said, rather, that the case stems from “overzealous students who ran ahead of the timetable of the assignment.” District officials are now trying to bring the project back to its original intent, he said.
There are five aspects of the assignment, the first three of which involve brainstorming. The fourth is to design their proposal, or “what it is they’re hoping to observe.” In the past, projects included observing the water temperature in a goldfish tank and its effects on their respiratory patterns, and the effect of light on pill bugs, “just simple things like that,” Mayer said.
The hope is that students will be “learning how to document and analyze the behavior of animals with absolutely no intent for kids to be conducting experiments in any context that they would be considered inhumane in anyway,” he said.
He said the fourth task of the assignment, in which the students describe the designed procedure, which gets handed in to the teacher with hypotheses and materials they would be using, was not due until April 28, more than a week after the students brought concerns to district officials. “We think students ran ahead of the approval process in their brainstorming phase and started to move further in the process than they had to,” Mayer said.
He also said handouts given out to students were clear that the teacher was going to give feedback to the students and ensure the organisms would be treated in a humane fashion.
Still, after the meeting, the school district sent out an addendum to all the students specifically clarifying and highlighting the district’s position on the matter. Included in the addendum were instructions for students not to purchase or collect animals until they have had the fourth task approved by their teacher. “Any students who have already purchased or collected animals for the project must develop a plan for proper care of the animals as well as a plan to safely return them to their original environment,” the addendum states.
It also states that the approval process for every project must detail how students plan to properly care for the animals in their possession, and that “no project will be approved that causes harm to any animal.”
The approval process “must also include detail on the plan for returning animals to their original environment. No domesticated animals are permitted to be released into the wild,” it further stated. “If animals are purchased for this project (not preferred), arrangements to return them safely to the pet store must be made in advance.”
The addendum also specifically states that if a student or group of students objects to engaging in the project, they will not be penalized, in accordance with state law.
Mayer said that Zapicchi visited all of the biology classes and reviewed the policy with them orally, and that district officials will work with the students who did run ahead. With regard to the pictures shown by Dougherty and Ganesh, Mayer said that a parent had purchased 20 to 25 mice and kept them in a small container, which wasn’t part of an experiment, and that “when mice are confined like that, they will eat each other.”
In response to the students’ comments that they had been ridiculed, Mayer complimented the students and said “they did a spectacular job in advocating what they think is right. We have to appreciate that. We have students all the time really stepping up and taking issues and running with them, which is wonderful.”##M:[more]##
He said Zapicchi was going to talk with all of the faculty members about “the importance of honoring kids hat raise issues for us to consider. He has no desire that his school be an environment that doesn’t support his students.”
Apart from following up with the students who already began collecting animals or made purchases, Mayer said officials are ensuring they make proper arrangements. “Nobody should be doing anything right now,” he said. “We haven’t approved anything.”
He said districts are working to ensure “the assignment is now back where it’s intended to be, and that it’s a valuable experience.” See letter to the editor, page 2.
