Ch. 9— Animal Use in Education and the Alternatives • 209 
In education, a traditional laboratory exercise with 
a well-known outcome is usually repeated by a new 
student or group of students. The process of self- 
discovery and training is generally of greater im- 
portance than the specific data being collected. 
Under these circumstances, live demonstrations 
can often provide experiences that combine the 
best of direct student participation in animal lab- 
oratories with a reduction in animal use. Such ex- 
ercises, when carried out by practiced professional 
instructors, avoid clumsy errors that students may 
make at the expense of laboratory animals. They 
also provide a convenient intermediate in the con- 
stant tension between active student participation 
in the laboratory and the limitations imposed by 
large class sizes. 
In a variation on the laboratory demonstration, 
students may work together in groups on a single 
animal, again using fewer animals than if each stu- 
dent worked alone on a single animal. Exercises 
based on animal cells, tissues, or organs may be 
coordinated such that the minimum number of 
animals required can be sacrificed. Or animals may 
be subjected to multiple procedures, although if 
these involve sequential survival surgeries the 
advantage of reducing the number of animals used 
stands in conflict with the undesirability of 
repeated insults imposed on a surviving animal. 
Noninvasive Procedures 
Observation can give rise to an appreciation of 
the diversity of the animal kingdom in general and 
important principles of physiology and behavior 
in particular. A sense of responsibility and an 
understanding of the life processes of animals are 
also conveyed when animals are maintained for 
observation in the laboratory. Areas for study in 
which animals can be used in a noninvasive man- 
ner include: 
• simple Mendelian genetics (e.g., the inheri- 
tance of coat color in successive generations 
of small rodents); 
• reproductive behavior (e.g., behavioral recep- 
tivity of a female during estrus); 
• normal physiological processes of maturity, 
aging, and death (e.g., the relationship be- 
tween aging and body weight); 
• disease processes (e.g., the incidence of spon- 
taneous tumor growth in a population); 
• biological rhythms (e.g., nocturnal and diur- 
nal feeding and drinking patterns); and 
• social interactions (e .g . , territoriality and dom - 
inance relationships among males). 
Reduction in Pain 
Reduction in pain and distress may be accom- 
plished with the use of anesthetics, analgesics, and 
tranquilizers. In education, this is of primary im- 
portance in surgical training, when animals are 
anesthetized, operated on, and then subjected to 
euthanasia. Principles of pain and pain relief— 
common to research, testing, and education— are 
discussed in chapters 5, 6, and 8. 
Substitution of Species 
The substitution of nonmammalian for mam- 
malian species, of cold-blooded vertebrates for 
warm-blooded ones, or of nonpet species for com- 
panion animals is occasionally possible in educa- 
tion. Swine have replaced dogs in one surgical 
teaching and research laboratory (20). The pigs 
were especially successful replacements in a basic 
operative surgery course offered as an elective to 
medical students. The principal advantages cited 
were closely shared anatomic and physiologic char- 
acteristics with humans, better health than dogs, 
and economic factors. 
Use of Other Living Systems 
in Education 
Invertebrates 
The use of invertebrates as an alternative is al- 
ready widespread in primary and secondary schools. 
Most laboratory manuals include common exer- 
cises that teach biological principles and introduce 
students to the scientific method of inquiry using 
organisms such as hydra, planaria (flatworms), an- 
nelids (earthworms), mollusks, and a variety of ar- 
thropods (e.g., insects and crustaceans). The use 
of invertebrates at the college and graduate levels 
may also increase as more is known about them. 
These deceptively simple systems are valuable re- 
sources for the laboratory investigation of sophis- 
ticated biological principles. 
