Washington, D.C. – April 25, 2011 –

Rancho Verde High School in Moreno Valley, CA is the first school to accept a challenge by the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) to discontinue animal dissections.

In conjunction with the “Race to Stop Dissections” contest organized by Save the Frogs!, AWI has partnered with Digital Frog International to provide a full Digital Frog 2.5 (voted BEST dissection alternative by eSchool News readers)  license to the first 25 schools that commit to end all animal dissections. To join the race, visit www.awionline.org/stopdissections.

“AWI commends Rancho Verde High School for abandoning its dissection program and using dissection alternatives to teach biology. This type of animal-friendly education is more humane, more effective, environmentally friendly, cost-effective and does not teach students to rationalize the unjustified killing of animals,” said AWI President, Cathy Liss.

The Race to Stop Dissections contest encourages students and teachers to assist worldwide amphibian conservation efforts by getting their schools and school districts to abandon frog dissection programs. One school will win a full license for the Digital Frog 2.5, cash prizes and an opportunity to hear Save the Frogs! Founder Dr. Kerry Kriger speak at their school. “Save the Frogs! aims to get every school in the United States to abandon their frog dissection programs by 2014,” said Dr. Kriger. The deadline for entries is December 1, 2011. Contest rules can be found at www.savethefrogs.com/dissections.
Investigations into the capture, transport, warehousing and killing of animals destined for dissection show that the procurement of animals for dissection causes unnecessary suffering and death. Millions of frogs are taken from wetland habitats, piled into sacks and inhumanely killed by immersion in preservative. Frog populations are rapidly disappearing worldwide and the use of frogs for dissection is a contributor in many parts of the world. Frogs play a crucial role in wetland habitats, both as consumers of insects and as food for other species, and their extinctions can wreak havoc on entire ecosystems.

Many students and teachers are questioning the educational value and ethics of using animals. Modern technology can teach students about the biology of living beings and to appreciate and the vital role that all animals play in the natural world. AWI, Save the Frogs! and Digital Frog International invite all students and teachers to participate in the Race to Stop Dissections.

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Media Contacts:

Serda Ozbenian, AWI, (202) 446-2144

Dr. Kerry Kriger, Save the Frogs!, (831) 621-6215

Celia Clark, Digital Frog International, 1-800-621-FROG(3764)

After visiting some dear friends in Sarasota, we headed off to Nicaragua. The airport in Managua was well organized and we were whisked off in a shuttle to our hotel for the first night even though it was less than a five minute walk! After a refreshing pina colada by the pool, we slept well and met our shuttle driver for the two hour drive to San Juan del Sur. We were saddened by the extremely poor living  conditions that we saw as left Managua and I could not help thinking that Haiti was like that BEFORE the earthquake. Nicaragua is the second poorest country in the western hemisphere, but in much better shape than Haiti. The average Nicaraguan earns around $2.00 a day.

A Nicaraguan house

On arrival in San Juan del Sur we were welcomed by the hotel manager and set out to explore the small fishing town – we watched the sun go down as we enjoyed a delicious fish dinner in a restaurant on the beach (amazingly ALL hotels and restaurants offer free internet access).

Sunset in San Juan del Sur

One of our reasons for visiting Nicaragua was to take school supplies for the small village of El Carizal where our local Rotary club is supporting a local jam making cooperative. Our first meeting was with our club champion , Richard, who has bought land down there, and Lori, a local American volunteer who is helping to coordinate the project. As Lori works as the concierge at Pelican Eyes, a local resort., we decided to eat lunch there – hardly the luxury setting we were expecting!

Pelican Eyes Resort

The next day we met with the English teacher to deliver the school supplies, then took a taxi to the small village where we were supposed to meet up with our colleagues – unfortunately we missed them and were stuck there with no transport and no cell phone that worked in Nicaragua! What do do? So, in the searing heat we set out to walk to the beach where the last Survivor series had been shot (we understood there was now a small restaurant there and assumed they would have a phone to call a taxi). Several Nicaraguans seemed concerned about the folly of this venture (with our poor Spanish we understood it was only one kilometer to the beach – in fact we think it was more like four kilometers). We splashed through several stream crossings (very refreshing), heard howler monkeys (which we could identify from the video in The Digital Field Trip to The Rainforest ) and finally, exhausted and extremely hot, arrived at this beautiful beach, only to learn that we were probably the only gringos to have walked that route without being robbed!

Playa Hermosa aka Survivor beach

The next day, we spent time with the children using some of the school supplies we had taken. We learned that making name plates with foam letters on a windy day in a Nicaraguan school is somewhat challenging!

School in El Carizal

On our return to Miami, we ran a workshop for teachers on digital vs. real dissection – what a contrast to school in Nicaragua!

Miami workshop

One of the exercises that we did was to assign metrics to various importance factors such as cost, learning retention etc. then assign a score to Digital Dissection, Wet Lab Dissection and Using Both Digital and Wet Labs to teach anatomy and physiology. We fully expected that using both digital and wet labs  would come out on top. Much to our amazement, the twenty seven teachers who attended the workshop concluded that, out of a possible score of 137, Digital Dissection scored 120, Wet Labs scored 65 and using both scored 98. YAY for Digital!

About a week ago we noticed tiny back legs on Taddy he is starting to change into the frog he will become.
My research shows that the next stage should take 9-12 weeks and I sure hope it is the later as we need the weather to warm up and snow to thaw before Taddy can be released.

Check out The Digital Frog‘s Ecology section to learn about the frogs life cycle or visit our website here and check out the related frog links.

We have been thinking about the tank we may have to create to keep Taddy should the weather be too cold for survival when metamorphosis is complete. We need to provide a  wet and dry environment for Taddy with some room to swim around. For now the aquarium with his friend Mr. Bo-jangles is just fine. I will let you know in a few weeks what is happening with Taddy so check back.

WOW – were we ever impressed at the creativity, insights and writing skills  of these busy people who are schooling their children at home.

We also learned that we are not doing a very good job of ensuring users know about ALL of the features available – many of those with younger children wished that the text could be read aloud – it CAN (in whatever “voice” your computer uses) -  by simply pressing R . Some complained the window was too small on high resolution monitors and could not figure out how to change to full screen mode. It CAN be changed under Preferences. This is probably because we authored the Quick Tour before those features were available.

Opinions were overwhelmingly positive – although many pointed out that these are secular programs and do not mention creationism.

We are working on providing links to many of these blogs, but in the meantime will quote a few of our favorites in our own blog.

This one is a quote from Elizabeth in New Zealand:

Our opinion:

D I G I T A L F R O G

Definitions a-plenty : Nearly every word you will read is well defined. Not only that, but some words even have a sound bite icon and you can hear how it’s pronounced.

D I G I T A L F R O G

Informative: There is an abundant amount of information on each section. As you go through the field trip you find posts with various information about the plant and animal life in that region. Different concepts are explained in further detail. Animals are discussed in regard to life cycle, habitat, size, food source and where they are found. We have created mind maps around the animals we’ve encountered. Not only do you get what is on the field trip, but when you go into the file you will also find a pdf file with worksheets related to the specific field trip.

You can download a Printable topic summary of the topics that are being discussed in the field trips by following the following link:

http://www.digitalfrog.com/resources/more_than_frogs_and_field_trips.html

D I G I T A L F R O G

Graphics galore: The graphics on the CD are amazing. There are various pictures of the same animals from different angles. Different types of rainforests are explained with animation to go with it.

D I G I T A L F R O G

Interesting! The information is all given in such a way that it’s not boring and neither does it ‘talk down’ to the child. Older kids would be able to read it by themselves, but even younger kids (early elementary) would enjoy this when Mum reads it to them. I found it amazing and enjoyed every minute of it.

D I G I T A L F R O G

Time… flies when you’re having fun. It’s easy for an hour and a bit to fly by when we’ve gone through the next part of the rainforest. It is advisable to take it slow as there is so much amazing information in it.

D I G I T A L F R O G

Affordable – These field trips can be bought separately at US$60 for a home license or all three at US$125. I think that for the amount of information that is available, the price is not steep. See the full price list for all the products.

D I G I T A L F R O G

Links page: The website has links to various resources related to the field trip series:

http://www.digitalfrog.com/resources/links.html

D I G I T A L F R O G

Frogger Club, Frog Blog and FaceBook: you can join the Frogger club for free and get things like extra worksheet, crosswords and video clips. The club is still ‘new’ so I’m sure that this will expand. Apart from the club, you can follow the FROG blog HERE, Facebook HERE.

D I G I T A L F R O G

RAINFOREST (Wetlands, Deserts) is the region we focussed on (it was a unanimous decision) and as I mentioned before we all love it! We will camp in the rainforest for a while yet before moving on to the Desert and Wetland areas. I’m sure it will keep us busy for a while.

D I G I T A L F R O G

Outstanding video footage. Yes, there are definitions, yes there are animated graphics, yes there are amazing photographs and yes, there are even video clips!

http://elizabethherr.blogspot.com/2010/10/tos-review-digitalfrog-international.html

D I G I T A L F R O G

Great product! Honestly, do yourself a favor and have a look at the downloadable demo – the ‘try-before-you-buy’ option! I love when this choice is given…to me it says that they are so certain of the quality of their product that they are happy to make a portion available, knowing people will love it. The demo is available by following this link:

http://www.digitalfrog.com/demo/index.html

You can read Elizabeth’s blog here:

http://elizabethherr.blogspot.com/2010/10/tos-review-digitalfrog-international.html

Thank You Elizabeth.

This is the beaver information, taken from The Digital Field Trip to The Wetlands program.

BEAVER

Beavers are one of the largest rodents in the western hemisphere and can weigh up to sixty pounds. Their hind feet, webbed like a duck’s, make them powerful swimmers. A thick underlayer of hair keeps them warm and dry. All rodents have front teeth that never stop growing.

Hunting beavers for their fine furs has led to extinction in some areas. They now have protected status in many countries.

Habitat

Beavers spend most of their time in water. They can stay underwater for up to fifteen minutes.

They build a dome-shaped lodge to live in, using mud, rocks and tree branches. The lodge has entrances underwater, an internal platform above water level, and a place to store food underwater.

Beavers exert a great influence on their habitat by damming streams and creating ponds.

Behavior

Beavers work hard to dam streams, thus creating ponds that won’t freeze completely during the winter. They are skillful builders; if they run out of nearby wood for the dam, they build channels to float wood into the pond from further away! They create spillways in the dam, enlarge them to cope with heavy rain and build them up again in dry periods.

Beavers stay in the lodge for most of the day, then feed at dusk.

Life Cycle

Beavers give birth to 3-5 young in the Spring. The young are born with hair and their eyes open; they stay with their parents for up to two years.

Food Source

Beavers eat water plants and the bark and leaves of trees.

Range

Beavers are found in these areas:

Suggested Links

THE JAGUAR

The word “jaguar” comes from “yaguar,” meaning “he who kills with one leap.”  Also known as “El Tigre,” the jaguar is the largest cat in the New World.  A jaguar can be as long as 2 m (6 ft), and weigh over 140 kg (300 lbs).  Its only predators are the anaconda and humans.

However, habitat loss and hunting have had a dramatic effect on jaguar populations, bringing jaguars close to extinction.  The jaguar reserve in Belize is the first of its kind.

Habitat

The jaguar lives in both lowland and mountain forests, by rivers, in jungles, savannas, mangrove swamps and moist forests.  It prefers damp areas, tracking prey by their footprints.

Each jaguar lives alone, but home ranges frequently overlap.

Behavior

The jaguar is nocturnal, stalking prey silently.  Its beautiful spotted coat provides camouflage, helping it sneak up on prey.  It is a good swimmer and can turn its front paws inward to help it grab prey.

Like most cats, it has good hearing and retractable claws.  It can roar, but not purr, and its eyes close to circles, not slits.  It has excellent sight, sees color and, at night, sees six times better than a human.

Life Cycle

A female jaguar gives birth to two or three young after a three month pregnancy.

Offspring are born blind and helpless.  They stay with their mother for one year, but do not fully mature for three years and can live up to 20 years.

Food Source

The jaguar is a carnivore and hunts vertebrates.  When it attacks, it pounces on the head or neck, and attempts to snap the spine.

A jaguar eats almost everything from a kill, including most of the bones.  It uses its side teeth to chew, because the front teeth are normally weak.

Range

Jaguars can be found in the following areas…

For more information on the jaguar and other rainforest plants and animals, take a look at The Digital Field Trip to the Rainforest. Or download a free demo of the program here.

The Purpose of TIPS/TAPS is to:

•   Provide school districts and other governmental entities opportunities for greater efficiency and economy in acquiring goods and services.

•   Provide quick and efficient delivery of goods and services by contracting with “high performance” vendors.

•   Equalize purchasing power for smaller entities that are not able to command the best contracts for themselves.

•   Maintain credibility and confidence in business procedures by maintaining open competition for purchases and by complying with purchasing laws and ethical business practices.

•   Assist entities in maintaining the essential controls for budget and accounting purpose.

This means that members can order with confidence knowing that all purchasing requirements have already been completed during the RFP process, saving the time and expense associated with competitively bidding each purchase.

Ordering is simple:

1.    Create a purchase order (use your district’s normal procedure). Be sure to write or type in DIGITAL FROG somewhere on the purchase order. If you want product shipped by courier please include your EIN number (federal tax id) for US Customs.

2.   FAX the purchase order to TIPS/TAPS at 866-839-8472

3.   Digital Frog will apply the 10% discount and ship your order within 2-5 business days.

In our frog dissection, anatomy and ecology program The Digital Frog 2.5, we address environmental concerns and the effects they have had on frog populations. Since we first published in 1995, new research has identified other possible causes, including urban noise and tiny parasites which have been found to cause damage to devloping limb buds.

It looks like it’s time to update the ecology section in The Digital Frog, part of which you can read here:

Introduction

Many scientists consider frogs important bio-indicators. Frogs have permeable skin and live both on land and in water. As a result, environmental problems quickly affect frogs. Recently, frog populations have declined or disappeared around the world, and deformities and mutations are becoming common. People have found adult frogs with misshapen bodies, extra legs, missing or abnormal organs, and even eyes growing inside mouths!

A Thousand Friends of Frogs

A Thousand Friends of Frogs Project was founded in 1995 to collect data on deformed frogs, and pass the information to research scientists. This project links students, educators, families, and scientists from around the world, and helps to educate people about frogs and their importance to us.

Possible causes

Frog deformities, mutations and declining populations are not likely to result from any single cause; it is much more probable that many factors affect our amphibian friends. Scientists have identified holes in the ozone layer, chemicals, pollution, habitat loss and frog harvesting as possible causes.

Ozone layer

Laboratory tests with ultraviolet light have produced frogs with leg deformities. Scientists speculate that holes in the ozone layer may allow enough ultraviolet light through to affect frogs in the wild.

Chemicals and pollution

Amphibian skin absorbs chemicals from both land and water. Tests show that some chemicals, pesticides, and industrial pollutants cause mutations, abnormal growth, or fatal deformities in frogs.

Industrial and agricultural by-products can harm local frogs. Acid rain and runoff rain can carry these chemicals to places far removed from human habitation.

Habitat loss and frog harvesting

Habitat loss is probably the biggest single factor in declining frog populations. Wetlands are frequently drained, filled in, or otherwise destroyed, depriving frogs of places to live. Commercial harvesting is another pressure. Worldwide, hundreds of thousands of frogs are captured each year and used in laboratories, schools, and restaurants; this causes serious declines in certain species.

Did you know?

We used four frogs in the original Digital Frog and none had deformities. This version required five frogs, and we discovered internal deformities in three of them.

We could not help wondering why a practicing pathologist, who dissects human tissue for a living, would be taking the time to research dissection alternatives. This is what she says on the Dissection Alternatives website hosted by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine website:

“As a pathologist, I perform careful dissections every day‚ on human tissues, not on animals. It’s my job to know the relationship between anatomy and physiology, between health and disease.

But it wasn’t the frog or cat dissections we performed in public school that inspired me to study science. It was my excellent science teachers! The energy they poured into our classrooms, the academic heights they challenged us to reach, and their own bright intellects drew me into this field.

Decades later, I’ve come to regret those dissections and have since studied computerized alternatives that are extremely comprehensive. As a doctor who performs autopsies, I can assure students that computer images of well-preserved tissues look more like the “real thing” than the squishy gray organs of a formalin-fixed specimen. Simulated dissection is very realistic, the accompanying text is elegant, and the graphics are superb. Computerized alternatives are rapidly replacing animals in medical and veterinary colleges across the country. And the same is true at earlier levels of training. That means that younger students can easily learn biology by taking advantage of state-of-the-art methods that do not involve dissecting at all. My heartfelt gratitude goes out to science teachers everywhere who are creating a passion for humane scientific study. Tomorrow’s great physicians and researchers depend on it.”

We were not involved in the production of this video, but are thrilled with all that Nancy has to say about our program, The Digital Frog 2.5 and that she is one of our biggest supporters and proponents. And Nancy will not even allow us to buy her a cup of coffee!

We find it interesting that The Digital Frog 2.5 has also been voted the best dissection alternative by eSchool News readers. However, we created the program to teach anatomy and physiology, not dissection skills. We included the dissection module to bridge the gap between the traditional way of teaching anatomy and physiology and the 21st century way – better, kinder and much more cost effective way.

And one thing that Nancy does not mention is that schools can save huge amounts of money by teaching anatomy and physiology with The Digital Frog instead of with wet labs and textbooks. We have just returned from a science teachers conference in Texas. One middle school principal, who purchased a Building Site License for The Digital Frog 2.5 last year, stopped by our booth to say that he has already saved $1,200! You’ll be amazed at the cost savings, especially for large schools.

We believed this to be such a fundamental topic in teaching about frog ecology that we even dedicated an entire screen in The Digital Frog 2.5‘s ecology section to the issue. On the page about environmental concerns, we wrote:

Many scientists consider frogs important bio-indicators. Frogs have permeable skin and live both on land and in water. As a result, environmental problems quickly affect frogs.

Recently, frog populations have declined or disappeared around the world, and deformities and mutations are becoming common. People have found adult frogs with misshapen bodies, extra legs, missing or abnormal organs, and even eyes growing inside mouths!

Frog deformities, mutations and declining populations are not likely to result from any single cause; it is much more probable that many factors affect our amphibian friends. Scientists have identified holes in the ozone layer, chemicals, pollution, habitat loss and frog harvesting as possible causes.

Laboratory tests with ultraviolet light have produced frogs with leg deformities. Scientists speculate that holes in the ozone layer may allow enough ultraviolet light through to affect frogs in the wild.

Amphibian skin absorbs chemicals from both land and water. Tests show that some chemicals, pesticides, and industrial pollutants cause mutations, abnormal growth, or fatal deformities in frogs.

Industrial and agricultural by-products can harm local frogs. Acid rain and runoff rain can carry these chemicals to places far removed from human habitation.

Habitat loss is probably the biggest single factor in declining frog populations. Wetlands are frequently drained, filled in, or otherwise destroyed, depriving frogs of places to live. Commercial harvesting is another pressure.  Worldwide, hundreds of thousands of frogs are captured each year and used in laboratories, schools, and restaurants; this causes serious declines in certain species.

We used four frogs in the original Digital Frog, and none had deformities. This version required five frogs, and we discovered internal deformities in three of them.

New research suggests that there are two more natural causes contributing to frog deformities:

1. The fungal condition chytridiomycosis which has brought rapid extinctions to some amphibians.

2. The deformed frogs are actually victims of the predatory habits of dragonfly nymphs, which eat the developing hind limbs of tadpoles! Remarkably many tadpoles seem to survive the ordeal, resulting into as much as 10% of frog populations missing limbs. You can read more on the BBC’s Earth News page (and even watch the video evidence of one hapless tadpole being made a victim by a dragonfly nymph).

In other frog research news, yet another recent study suggests that up to one billion frogs are taken from the wild for human consumption each year. Not to mention the millions of frogs that are cut up every year in schools around the world. No wonder frogs are used as the poster children of the natural world!