Ch. 9— Animal Use in Education and the Alternatives • 211 
Computer Simulation in Education 
tion as models for dissection. Commercially pre- 
pared specimens are often used in junior high and 
high school education; medical and veterinary 
schools are more likely to prepare their own speci- 
mens. In some situations, cadavers may provide 
adequate replacements where living animals were 
once used. 
Computer simulation offers a variety of alter- 
natives for studying animal and human biology 
at all levels of education, and the field is evolving 
quickly as experience grows and computer tech- 
nology advances. Although at this time popular 
expectations for computer simulation still out- 
distance actual performance, the options that simu- 
lations present to educators can be expected to 
increase. Educational computer simulations fall 
into two categories: computer models of biologi- 
cal events and interactive simulations of biologi- 
cal experiments. 
Computer simulations of biological events— pri- 
marily mathematical models of physiological and 
cellular phenomena— present in quantitative form 
phenomena that might be difficult or impossible 
to study in animals or humans. By altering param- 
eters within the programs and noting results, stu- 
dents learn principles of biology from an ersatz 
animal system, the computer program . For exam- 
ple, a dog’s circulatory functions are converted 
to a series of mathematical equations, which are 
programmed into a computer. As students change 
individual values or groups of values, the program 
resolves the various equations and reports values 
that mimic the effects of altering those parame- 
ters of the circulatory system in a living dog. Fig- 
ure 9-1 depicts a portion of such a simulation. 
An array of computer models of physiological 
processes are used in undergraduate and gradu- 
ate laboratory exercises. The range of physiological 
simulations includes simulations of blood chemis- 
try, cardiovascular physiology, the digestive sys- 
tem, the musculoskeletal system, respiratory phys- 
iology, and renal physiology. Computer simulations 
currently used in physiology laboratory exercises 
include: 
• HUMAN : a comprehensive phvsiological mod- 
el (3), 
Use of the Human Placenta for Training in 
Microvascular Surgery 
Human placenta perfused under dissecting microscope. 
Photo credits: Paul LG. Townsend, Consultant Plastic Surgeon, 
Frenchay Hospital, Bristol 
Sutures and valves implanted in vessels of human placenta. 
