Biology lessons at school

[Marine Boy]

Biology is one of the subjects that most stands out for me when I recall secondary school. I was average in the subject but it often seemed to be the source of the most drama and hilarity.

*The rats that were bred for experiments. "Ooo look, she's had babies! How sweet." (There's next term's practicals sorted.)

*The laboratory prep room. If you were nice to the lab tech, she'd let you look inside her little world.

*The fruit flies in jars that we tended daily, and the bright spark who would take off a lid and the insects would start flying round the classroom. "Is that a bit of food in your teeth?" "No, it's a fruit fly." I think we used them to study percentages of male and female offspring.

Which brings me to sex education lessons. Never has a room full of boys giggled and smirked so much as when the 'learning about puberty' lessons came around. Those dreadful old films and TV programmes; the boys that would purposely ask awkward questions of the young, inexperienced teacher. The discussion afterwards that we'd all done it and seen it and knew about it all anyway. Yeah, right.

Does anyone else have any memories? "Oh yeh! Double Biology! We get to pull mouse skulls out of owl pellets today!" (Actually, that was rather cool).

[HG]

Re: Biology lessons at school

I remember the mouse skulls out of owl pellets too.

Watching a video of a woman giving birth, and hearing a lardge bang, turning round I saw one of my class mates flat on her back with her legs straight up in the air after fainting. Fiona Oddy if you read this yes it was you!

Dissecting kidney's and eyes. Turning the eye inside out was too much for me when all this liquid squirted out, it necessitated a quick dash to the toilets.

[Palazzo]

Re: Biology lessons at school

We had our sex education talk/lesson near the end of primary school, our year group were split into boys and girls and were taken into a classroom to watch the dreaded video. I remember being sat at the end of the front row with the class clowns being sat at the opposite end. The video went through the story of the birds and the bees and was fairly old, probably from the 70's or the 80's. My memory of the whole event was the lads at the end of the front row almost in tears, they were trying so hard not to laugh, it almost sent the whole room into hysterics. The next day the teacher who watched the tape with us let us know how immature we were and that he was very disappointed at us. Happy days!

Onto secondary school and the original science block (before it got burnt down) was chock full of glass jars with dead insects and other oddities inside. One lesson one of the lads looked over at one of the jars which contained a long-dead axolotl salamander, the lad asked "What the hell is an Axolotl?" and the rest of the lesson turned into a massive farce with this lad getting the teacher to explain the history of the axolotl salamander in an attempt to completely divert the day's lesson.

At one point our form room was actually one of the biology rooms and the table I sat at was situated right next to the wall holding all sorts of bottled acids. One morning I remember our class clown (I must have attracted them) grabbing one of the bottles, twisting off the lid and trying to flick the contents on anybody within reach. Luckily I knew what was coming and legged it to safety.

[Marine Boy]

Re: Biology lessons at school

...getting the teacher to explain the history of the axolotl salamander in an attempt to completely divert the day's lesson.

Diverting the teacher's lesson plan was a wonderful source of fun! Some kids were really good at it.

At one point our form room was actually one of the biology rooms and the table I sat at was situated right next to the wall holding all sorts of bottled acids. One morning I remember our class clown (I must have attracted them) grabbing one of the bottles, twisting off the lid and trying to flick the contents on anybody within reach. Luckily I knew what was coming and legged it to safety.

OMG! That sounds dangerous. But then again, we did dangerous things as kids and I suppose school life was all the more enjoyable because of it.

[Richard1978]

Re: Biology lessons at school

I remember also watching a facts of life video not long before I left primary school. Some things in it really cracked me up, along with a few other class members. Some saying hello in a half broken voice brought the house down.

We laughed so much we had to watch it again the next day & told to keep quiet!

Some videos at secondary school had similar results.

[tulip]

Re: Biology lessons at school

Well,we girls got our "talk" in primary 7 and got it again in either first or second year.We had section 6 in the blue science book which covered reproduction.Then we got our sex ed in social education class,we got videos.If you laughed or giggled you got chucked out!

tulip

[rossobantam]

Re: Biology lessons at school

Diverting the teacher's lesson plan was a wonderful source of fun! Some kids were really good at it.



OMG! That sounds dangerous. But then again, we did dangerous things as kids and I suppose school life was all the more enjoyable because of it.

we had a dotty old English teacher, and we all would shine the sunlight off our digital ( ) watches across onto her as she read aloud from a book

Physics was best for me....teacher was sooo funny, always playing practical jokes/taking mick out of the 'odder' kids ...sending kids for 'long weights' etc . He also was into model aircraft & sold kits from his stock room!

[Danny]

Re: Biology lessons at school

Dissecting kidney's and eyes. Turning the eye inside out was too much for me when all this liquid squirted out, it necessitated a quick dash to the toilets.

I remember getting sent out of school with a classmate to walk approx 1/4 mile to a local abbattoir. We had a bucket (with a lid fitted and a pole to go through handle to share the load )and a chitty from our biology teacher for one hundred cows eyes.
The guy in slaughterhouse tried to gross us out by squashing a few in his hand but under our unconcerned 13 year old gazes he withered and then just shrugged, mutterd to himself and filled up the bucket.
A quick check outside revealed about 140 eyes so we created a trail by placing eyes on pavement,garden walls etc all the way back to school.
The stench was pretty bad cos it was a hot day but what fun it seemed at the time

[baggieman0]

Re: Biology lessons at school

My main memory of Biology was one very hot day the drains in the lab sink in front of me were making a very loud gurgling sound with intermitant pops after half an hour of this there was one very loud gurgle followed by an even louder bang and next thing I know me and a couple of mates are covered in smelly, black school drain discharge! Wouldn't have minded but I got in trouble for my exercise book being covered in gunk as well. Went back to the school two years after I'd left (three years after the "event") and the ceiling was still stained.

On the subject of disecting bull's eyes did everyone else have to use the world's bluntest scapels?

[Star Attraction]

Re: Biology lessons at school

Which brings me to sex education lessons. Never has a room full of boys giggled and smirked so much as when the 'learning about puberty' lessons came around. Those dreadful old films and TV programmes; the boys that would purposely ask awkward questions of the young, inexperienced teacher. The discussion afterwards that we'd all done it and seen it and knew about it all anyway. Yeah, right.

I remember that in the 4th year at my secondary school - autumn term 1986 we were doing reproduction in plants and animals in GCSE biology. Having done reproduction in plants in the first half of that term, it was time to move on to sexual reproduction in mammals in the second half. The biology teacher said "When I was your age we had to do reproduction in rabbits - as reproduction in humans was considered too dangerous, we only wrote at the end 'humans reproduce in a similar way'." He then said "In GCSE biology there's plenty of topics on the syllabus for us to do a practical in, but we can't do a practical in this as I'd probably have the sack". We all laughed at the humourous comments. Anyway, we had to draw diagrams of the male and female reproductive systems. I think this was everyone's favourite topic in the whole of that year.

[darren]

Re: Biology lessons at school

I remember the mouse skulls out of owl pellets too.

Watching a video of a woman giving birth, and hearing a lardge bang, turning round I saw one of my class mates flat on her back with her legs straight up in the air after fainting. Fiona Oddy if you read this yes it was you!

Dissecting kidney's and eyes. Turning the eye inside out was too much for me when all this liquid squirted out, it necessitated a quick dash to the toilets.

Ha u can remember her name.ha.
to be fair the biology lessons i got where not that good.
when the teachers talked to us about it they looked more embarrassed than us pupils did.
this is back in the mid eighties.

they covered giving birth but not in great detail.
i think even now its not much better.

we learnt most things from the playground most if it was not true.
you know what kids are like regarding that subject.

a

[willpurry]

Re: Biology lessons at school

We got a video of a cartoon clockwork man chasing a clockwork woman.

[darren]

Re: Biology lessons at school

WOW talk about learning you t all you needed to know.

i think teachers where embarrassed to teach it.
or else they where not allowed to.

in fact i think it confused you more than helping you.

[80sChav]

Re: Biology lessons at school

At primary school, we never had any Science Lessons. It was quite similar at Secondary too, though we had Science it was " a bit of every Sceince", so Biology or Physics etc would of all been very basic if at all! and nothing that we could easily learn too. I hated all Sceince's back then - which I guess in turn made me (as I still do believe today), not to believe in Sceince of any type/kind.

I guess I was lucky I got away with missiing so much of it - with changing School's too, though my 2nd Form Tutor was a Sceince Teacher, but he never ever tried to push us to like it which I have an hunch many might of abd do too possibly!

80sChav

[shilton dipper]

Re: Biology lessons at school

I remember dissecting a pig's eye............stuck the scalpel in and I was showered with some black liquid that had the most vile smell........ohhhh yuckkkk ..........the worm was just so much easier