The Eye's Have It

The joys of homeschooling--or, should I say, the good, the bad, and the ugly...this time it was a combination. We got to dissect an eye, ewwwww! My youngest daughter had been begging me for a year or more get a lamb eye for her, so when I ordered some science items the other day, we got an eye, not a lamb, but a cow. Here it is in all it's gory detail, and if you want to know more, you can read about it here.

Shall we get started?!

First you have to cut all the tissue away...

Love that formaldehyde smell...

There now, it's nice and clean. That stemlike thing on the back is the optic nerve.

This is the cornea. It's quite tough. Stronger than I thought, but am so glad!
Sorry for the blur, my son was taking the pictures (he's not used to my camera yet).

Here's the front half...lens and iris, looking at it from the inside.
Now for the back, this is the retina. It's just a tissue held in place by the
vitreous humor, a gel like substance inside the eye that holds the eye in shape.
The retina is attached to the eye by the optic nerve which is where your blind spot is.

"Eye see you!"
This is getting a little cheesy.

This is the lens. It's different that we thought it would be.
It's kind of like a mancala piece, and is layered like an onion.

Mmm...tasty.

Here's the back with the retina taken off. Animal eyes have the iridescent
shine to them so that they can see at night. That's what makes them
glow in the headlights, but it also distorts their daytime vision.

Here's the happy girl who started this whole thing...

What we didn't show you was her throw up pail...she used it about five times!

Now, how about some breakfast...