NAVS Awards Inaugural BioLEAP Classroom Grants
In June of 2022, NAVS awarded our first-ever BioLEAP Classroom Grants to eight teachers who are planning to implement humane education tools in their curriculum during the 2022-2023 school year. Thanks to your support, students from coast to coast will learn about anatomy and other life science topics without the use of animal specimens.
The selected teachers demonstrated their dedication to replacing or reducing the use of animal dissection in the classroom. We are honored to help fund their humane efforts.
Let’s meet this year’s recipients!
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First up is Tracy Marinaro, who teaches sixth grade science at Mary Putnam Henck Intermediate School in Crestline, California. Marinaro is a dedicated vegan and animal rights activist who strongly believes that animals should never be used in the classroom. In the past, she has refused to teach animal dissections in her classroom—despite being encouraged to do so by her school—and has used online dissection alternatives instead. She hopes to use the grant to purchase synthetic frog models, so her students have the opportunity for hands-on dissection experience.
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Brooke Stewart is a biology and environmental science teacher at South Central Jr Sr High School in Elizabeth, Indiana. During her evolution and anatomy unit, Stewart found herself observing students who openly questioned the morality of animal dissections, as well as students who were “disturbingly desensitized” to cutting open dead animals. Both reactions forced her to confront the fact that it was time to introduce humane alternatives into her classroom. Her plan is to use her BioLEAP Classroom Grant to purchase seven Rescue Critter Frog Dissection models to completely replace animal dissections.
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Our next recipient is Annie Tam, who teaches biology at West Covina High School in West Covina, California. Traditionally, her anatomy curriculum has involved cat dissections. After several of her students took a stand and refused to participate, she decided it was time to take the first steps toward building a more humane classroom. Tam plans to use the grant to purchase interactive cat dissection models that she can reuse for years to come, saving the lives of many cats. She hopes that by introducing dissection alternatives in her classroom she will begin moving in the right direction toward ending the normalization of animal cruelty in schools.
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In a unique twist, postdoc fellow Caryn Babaian proposed that, in lieu of using the grant to purchase dissection alternatives for her students at Bucks County Community College, she will use the funding to create her own humane learning tool. Her innovative approach to anatomy education is based on the studies of Leonardo DaVinci, who would meticulously sketch the specimens he observed. Babaian believes that the active learning process of drawing an animal helps students gain an intimate understanding of form and function that cannot be achieved through dissection. She plans to create an online guided course that will allow her to share her arts-based anatomy lessons with students and teachers across the country.
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Next up is Donna Martin, who teaches science classes to grades 6-12 at Watts Public School in Watts, Oklahoma. Martin’s class currently conducts dissections, but she has noticed that her students do not like the mess, smell or killing involved in traditional dissections. In order to get more students involved in dissection and to eliminate year-to-year waste, she has decided to explore teaching anatomy through virtual reality. Martin plans to use her BioLEAP Classroom Grant to purchase VR headsets and subscriptions to VictoryXR Academy’s virtual dissection packages.
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Virtual reality is also the goal for grant winner Tiara Thomas of Fortlo Academy in Opa Locka, Florida. Her high school biology students will be getting the opportunity to explore dissection using MERGE Cubes this year and for years to come thanks to the BioLEAP Classroom Grant. These cubes work in tandem with students’ phones to create augmented reality projections of frog specimens. The students are able to manipulate and dissect as many times as they like, something that Thomas believes makes the tool superior to traditional dissection specimens, which can only be used once. She hopes that the MERGE cubes will allow her students to conduct safe dissections free of harmful chemicals, while also instilling an appreciation for living things.
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Michelle Ellis teaches biology and environmental science at Bardstown High School in Cox’s Creek, Kentucky. A vegan and animal lover, Ellis has strong moral issues with her school’s dissection policy. During the pandemic, she shifted to online dissection alternatives while in-person labs were not possible—a trend that Ellis hopes to carry over now that in-class teaching has resumed. Her plan is to use the BioLEAP Classroom Grant money to purchase Biosphera’s 3D digital dissection software, which includes models for animals like frogs, pigs and cats. She hopes that the purchase of this software means that she will never have to use animal specimens in her classroom again.
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Our final award went to Deborah Chabi, a high school biology teacher at Dundee Crown High School in Carpentersville, Illinois. Concerned about the ethical and environmental impact of traditional animal dissections, Chabi has decided to purchase Scienstructable 3D dissection models and 4D Vision Anatomy models for her classroom. She believes that, given their curriculum’s increased focus on ethology and animal sentience, it is important that students be given an opportunity to act on the ideas they are being introduced to and opt out of dissection.
Congratulations to all our winners! We can’t wait to see your humane education plans in action.