Population: ABE or intermediate-advanced ESOL.

Objective: To examine the skeletal-muscular system.

Materials:
Dissecting kits, chicken wings, latex gloves, newspapers, paper plates.

Overview:
This lesson was part of a unit on the skeletal-muscular system. Prior to this activity, the students had worked with a variety of materials, including a science textbook (so vocabulary was familiar to them). For this activity, the students work in pairs.

Directions for Each Pair:

• Cover the tables with newspapers. Put on a pair of latex gloves.
• Take a chicken wing, a paper plate, and a dissecting kit.
• Put the chicken on the table.
• Remove the dissecting kit from the box.
• Examine the wing. Discuss the questions below with your partner. Record your answers in the journal.
• How many bones are there?
• How many joints?
• What kind of joints?
• Carefully remove the skin. Discuss the questions below with your partner and record your answers in your journal.
• How many muscle groups are there?
• Are the muscle groups in pairs?
• What bones does each group connect?
• Try to use a muscle to move another part of the wing.
• Remove the muscles and tendons carefully. Locate ligaments.
• Look for the cartilage.
• There must also be veins and nerves here. How could we speculate about which parts are veins or nerves?

Follow-up:
Clean up the area carefully with a diluted bleach solution. Collect students observations on the board for all to see.

Teacher's Comments:
Even the squemish liked this. There was a lot of conversation between pairs, comparing findings and comments. A couple of the students rushed into cutting their chicken wings apart. When they realized that they had cut too much too quickly, they asked for another wing so they could start over. It was a great way for all of us to apply what we had learned from print.