A banana autopsy gives a hands-on experience for PBHS students

Students in Michael Raucci’s College Anatomy and Physiology class had a unique lab experience recently: they performed an autopsy on a banana.

A man in a white shirt and dark pants stands on the right, bending over and looking into a tray with two high school students who are on the right. He has forceps in his hand as he moves something.

Dr. Raucci painstakingly put items into each banana to represent different organs – for example, dates were the brain, kidney beans were the kidneys, pasta was the lungs and a cranberry was the heart.

An upclose shot of a banana in a tray. The banana is being used in an autopsy with students determining the cause of death.

Students used a scalpel, probe, forceps, scissors, sutures and an electronic scale – the same instruments used by a pathologist during an autopsy on a human. They followed the step-by-step procedure given to them by Dr. Raucci, making initial observations, examining the external evidence, weighing the victim, making the incision and observing the damage to various parts of the body. After documenting their observations and determining the cause of death, the students used sutures to close up the victim.

A high school young man, wearing a blue sweatshirt and latex gloves, uses a clamp to hold open a banana skin that is on a tray,

The purpose of this exercise, Dr. Raucci said, was to give the students the opportunity to utilize the instruments and use the vocabulary they have been studying in this lab setting.

A high school girl with shorter blonde hair wearing a red sweatshirt sits at a lab table with a young man with dark hair and blonde highlights, wearing a tan shirt. They are looking at a tray that has a banana in it.

Two high school students look closely at a banana on a tray.

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A banana autopsy gives a hands-on experience for PBHS students