Eyeball Dissection!

Lauren holds her cow eye on her thumb after turning it inside
out and locating the optic nerve connection.

First we removed the fat from around the cow eye. This fat
is important because it cushions the eye.

Samantha has just removed the cornea
and found it to be a tough, clear covering
over the iris.

Today at the Arizona Science Center we dissected cow eyeballs! It was a very messy experiment, as you can tell from the pictures. We learned firsthand about the lens, cornea, iris, optic nerve, and the vitreous humor (the thick, clear jelly that helps give the eyeball its shape). Did you know that a cow's eye has only four muscles and a human's eye has six muscles? The iris is the part of the eye that enlarges and contracts to let light in and out. We know this because we experimented in the light and dark while looking at our own eyes in a mirror. The iris really does change size! Another interesting fact is that all cows have brown eyes; however, our cow iris tore to pieces when we tried to remove it. We ate lunch right after this dissection lab!