I took biology my sophomore year of high school (we dissected frogs), but one day my teacher wanted to bring our class over to the senior anatomy class to observe them dissecting cats. All I can remember was that very few of the students seemed to be taking it seriously. A few of them were DANCING with the dead cats. It was so disgusting, immature, and disrespectful. The teacher didn't seem to have much control of that class I never took anatomy, partially for that reason, but I already had enough science credits anyway. I have a couple friends who are going to college for biology majors. They just dissected pigs a couple semesters ago.

I don't think I gained much from my frog dissection (my lab partner did most of the 'hands on' work... I really did not like poking around inside a dead animal). I don't think dissection is should be necessary for just basic high school science classes, I can understand the use of them for anatomy students. It's nice if the cats really do come from a shelter instead of just killing them specifically for science. I remember my biology teacher having a HUGE catalog of different 'specimens' you could order. I was amazed at some of the stuff you could buy