Dissections in Schools: Traditional vs. Digital
What recent studies found when comparing virtual and real dissection, how schools combine the two, student opt-out rules and specimen safety.
Virtual dissection now matches real specimens in recent studies. How schools combine the two, which students may opt out, and the safety rules that apply.
Virtual dissection no longer has to be a compromise. A 2024 randomized trial found that students who dissected virtually scored higher on anatomy quizzes than students who worked with real specimens, and a 2025 review of 22 studies reached a similar conclusion while finding that most students still wanted hands-on work as well. For a school science department, the useful question is how to combine virtual and traditional dissection, which students may opt out, and what safety rules apply to the specimens that remain.
Traditional dissection means cutting open a preserved organism to study its internal structures and systems. Virtual dissection, sometimes called digital dissection, uses software, 3D models or virtual reality to simulate the same work, and synthetic specimens offer a third option that can be cut by hand without using an animal. Each has a place, and the right mix depends on a school’s goals, budget, schedule and students.
Why is dissection important in biology?
Dissection lets students see and handle what a textbook can only draw. A student who traces a frog’s digestive tract or finds the chambers of a sheep heart learns how organs sit in three dimensions, how they connect, and how one species differs from another. It also teaches lab skills that biology and health careers depend on: careful observation, the safe use of instruments and following a procedure step by step.
Dissection also has costs that teachers know well. It takes time that crowded science calendars rarely have, it requires specimens that must be ordered, stored and disposed of properly, and it can be expensive for larger animals. Common specimens in middle and high school include earthworms, grasshoppers, perch, frogs, fetal pigs, sheep brains, hearts and cow eyes. Frog dissection remains the most familiar of all, and searches for it peak every April and May, when many biology classes reach their anatomy units.
Animal dissection pros and cons
The case for traditional dissection is the hands-on experience: texture, scale and the small surprises a model cannot reproduce. The case against it rests on cost, preparation time, exposure to preservatives, and ethical objections from some students and families. Virtual dissection reverses most of that list. It can be repeated as often as a student needs, costs little once licensed, works without a lab, requires no preservatives and raises no ethical objection. Its limits are the missing tactile experience and its dependence on the accuracy of the digital model.
Synthetic specimens sit between the two. They can be cut and handled like a real animal without preservatives, but they currently cost more than a preserved specimen, which puts them out of reach for many departments.
Virtual and synthetic dissection options for schools
Schools have three kinds of alternatives to a preserved specimen. Free and low-cost software is the simplest: Froguts, now hosted free by Animalearn, covers a bullfrog, a cow eye, a starfish, a fetal pig and an owl pellet, with quizzes after each section, which makes it a common choice for a virtual frog dissection. Virtual reality adds depth: Xennial’s Biology Dissection Lab for Meta Quest headsets, built for middle and high school biology, includes a worm, clam, crayfish, fish and frog, in English and Spanish, with a licensed version for schools. Synthetic specimens keep the hands-on experience without an animal: SynDaver’s SynFrog, first used by a Florida high school in 2019, has skin, muscles, organs and a skeleton made from water, fibers and salts, and contains no preservatives.
Combining virtual and hands-on dissection
Many teachers now use the two methods together. In one approach, students complete a virtual frog dissection as a pre-lab, so they arrive knowing where the organs sit and how the scalpel, T-pins and probe will be used. In another, the class performs the hands-on dissection first and then uses the simulation for review and extension, returning to structures they missed. Both approaches give students more time with the anatomy than a single lab period allows.
Two recent studies show how far the digital option has come. In a 2024 randomized trial with 154 first-year medical students, Yun and colleagues found that students using virtual dissection on headsets, touchscreens and tablets scored significantly higher on neuroanatomy quizzes than students working with donor specimens, and rated the virtual formats higher for clarity and spatial understanding. A 2025 systematic review of 22 studies by Telecan and colleagues found better results with virtual dissection tables in most of the studies, but also that only a small share of students wanted virtual work alone, and that no screen replaces the tactile feedback of a real specimen. Both studies involved university students, so they say less about younger learners, and both point schools toward using the two methods together.
Where do dissection specimens come from?
Most preserved specimens sold to schools come from the food industry, according to the suppliers. Carolina Biological Supply says its fetal pigs are a byproduct of pork production, most of them stillborn, and that its bullfrogs are farm raised for the food trade, while grass frogs are collected for frog legs. Sheep and cow organs come from animals processed for meat, and dogfish sharks from commercial fishing within federal quotas. Animal welfare groups dispute parts of that account, particularly for frogs, and teachers who want to answer students’ questions well should ask their own supplier for its sourcing statement in writing.
Can students opt out of dissection?
In many states, yes. Many states give students the right to decline dissection and complete an alternative assignment without a grade penalty, and the rules differ from state to state. California law, for example, already lets a student with a moral objection opt out and do an alternative project, and a 2024 bill to strengthen that right did not pass. The Animal Legal Defense Fund keeps a state-by-state guide to student choice laws, and districts set their own policies on top of state law. Teachers should know their state’s rule and their district’s policy before the unit begins, tell families in writing that a dissection is planned, and offer the alternative in writing too. Virtual dissection makes that alternative easy to provide without lowering the learning goal.
Safety rules for preserved specimens
Preserved specimens carry safety obligations. Where specimens contain formaldehyde, the federal OSHA formaldehyde standard limits exposure to 0.75 parts per million over an eight-hour day and requires employers to protect staff who handle it. Classrooms should have good ventilation, chemical splash goggles and gloves for every student, a safe way to handle and dispose of scalpels and pins, and specimens stored and discarded according to the supplier’s safety data sheet. The National Science Teaching Association’s position statement on the responsible use of live animals and dissection sets out the same expectations for planning, alternatives and care.
Teachers who want structured training can take Science Safety’s online Dissection Safety module, which covers planning, instruments, preservatives, specimen handling, cleanup and disposal.
Virtual or traditional dissection: what schools should decide
For most schools, the choice is not one or the other. Virtual dissection is now strong enough to prepare students, to serve as a full alternative for those who opt out, and to extend learning after the lab. Traditional dissection still offers the hands-on experience students say they value. A department that plans the two together, follows its state’s opt-out rules and treats preserved specimens as the chemical hazard they are will give students the best of both.
References
- Yun et al. (2024). Effectiveness and satisfaction with virtual and donor dissections: A randomized controlled trial. Scientific Reports. Full text
- Telecan et al. (2025). Dissection in the 21st century: virtual tables versus traditional methods and their influence on medical students’ perception, a systematic review. BMC Medical Education, 25, 1332. doi:10.1186/s12909-025-07946-6
- Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Formaldehyde standard, 29 CFR 1910.1048. OSHA
- National Science Teaching Association. Responsible Use of Live Animals and Dissection in the Science Classroom
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