After e-mail discussions with Tony Galitsis, retired teacher, science ed specialist, founding member and still active partipant of the New York City Science Coordinator's Network (hope I got all that right), I googled "ASPCA humane treatment schools" and lo & behold, up came Article 17 of New York State Law on humane treatment of animals.
The ASPCA version of New York State Law Article 17 has a little more information, but not much, and indicates it is current as of 2000, amended in 1994. It also includes some common sense guidelines for treatment of animals kept in classrooms as pets or for simple observational studies. They have a printer friendly version as well.
Tony is less optimistic than I am that elementary & middle school students, or teachers for that matter, can carry out animal experiments properly. As I was formulating an argument in favor of such experiments, I found myself thinking maybe he has a point. I still think an outright ban would be going too far (which Tony wasn't suggesting either), whether by school or district administrators, but perhaps some kind of formal review process would be appropriate. This would increase the liklihood that only serious and meaningful studies would be carried out, decrease the chances of inhumane practices taking place.
At this point, however, any such process would probably have to come from the school or district (region in NYC) level.
Elsewhere on ASPCA Website:
Animals in the Classroom: A short article on things to consider and basic guidelines.
No comments:
Post a Comment