1. Work as a team! Research, Photograph, Dissect, Record your Observations. Everyone should be busy!
Do not plan on washing your hands until the end of the dissection has been announced
Choose Roles
Surgeon, Assistant Surgeon, Recorder (photographer/sketcher), Reader

2. Chicken LEG Dissection
Purpose:
Observe the different tissue types that make up a chicken’s leg
Skin (ET), muscle tissue, fat/adipose (CT), bones/osseous (CT), and blood vessels (CT) \

3. Which bone on the chicken are we working with today?

4. Sketch chart into your lab notebook

5. Procedure Dry your chicken leg thoroughly with a paper towel
 Procedure Dry your chicken leg thoroughly with a paper towel. Examine the leg at the point where it was removed from the body. Depending on the way the leg is cut, you might see cartilage and bone marrow. Peel skin off rather than cutting if possible.Try not to cut through the muscles located beneath the skin. Do this by piercing the skin and then slipping the scissor between the skin layer and the muscles.

6. Procedure Step 2
Remove as much skin from the thickest part of the leg as possible, exposing the underlying muscle – save in a pile for verbal quiz
Observe the muscle. The muscles are bundles of pale pink tissue that surround the bone.
Take your time peeling back the skin so as not to damage the tissues underlying it.
Include Photo or sketch in lab. Fill in chart.

7. Pay attention to where muscle connects to bone

8. Record your observations about tendons

9. Procedure Step 4
Look for yellowish tissue clumped together beneath the skin. This is fat tissue, made of fat cells (adipose)
Find and photograph the groups of muscles in the leg
Cut off the muscles keeping tendons attached- make a pile- pin both the tendon and the muscle tissue

10. Locate, sketch and label a ligament
Locate, sketch and label a ligament. Ligaments are shiny white tissue at the ends of bone.
Two bones come together at a joint.
Ligaments connect bones to other bones at joints.
Closely examine the cartilage at the end of the bone-identify any remnants of the ligaments

11. Locate Cartilage it is the slippery shiny white tissue at the ends of bone.
Cartilage is slippery- and helps the bones move without grinding against one another, or without causing trauma
Slide your finger under the cartilage and tear it from the top of the bone- this needs to be completely removed in order for day 2 of the lab to work correctly- BE CAREFUL not to break the bone itself

12. Once you have identified the following parts: skin, fat, muscle, tendon, ligament, cartilage, blood vessels and bone, call your instructor over for a group oral quiz and initials.

13. After your verbal quiz
Throw away all chicken leg parts into the designated garbage can- EXCEPT THE BONE!
Take your bone and place in ziplock bag- label with your name and the mass of the bone!
SPRAY all dissection tools and your tray with disinfectant spray.
Wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water.

15. What is the function of a tendon?
Analysis Questions:
1. What function is performed by ligaments?
What is the function of a tendon?
3.  What tissue is referred to when one speaks of the “meat” of the chicken?
4. What type of tissue is skin?
What type of tissue is bone?
The muscle you observed is classified as what type of muscle tissue (cardiac, smooth or skeletal)?