After we looked at single-celled organisms in the last session, today the first “real” animal was on the agenda: Earthworms.

The whole day I had an uneasy feeling that got worse when we entered the room. Thankfully we didn’t have to grab the tools right away, first we had a little theory. That calmed my nerves somewhat.

Now we had an idea of what to expect. But when we had the animals in front of us, I was nervous again. And it didn’t really get better. Our professor explained how we had to use the first pin to fix the animal to the base.

The earthworm had to be pulled tied before starting to cut it. That is the only way to open the animal without damaging the organs. When putting the pin in the head, you had to make sure not to damage the brain, which we unfortunately did.

It was really interesting to see what the animal looks like from inside and how many parallels there are to humans. I didn’t know before that earthworms also have organs like kidneys. Eventually, my curiosity overcame my nervousness.

It wasn’t until the end of the class that I became aware that it was a living being we had cut open. We were supposed to just throw it away as if it were worthless.