By Mary Beth Barber,  Program Manager for COMPASS at California State Library

In the spring and summer of 2024, teacher leaders with CASE were concerned about a bill making its way through the legislature concerning animal dissection. The bill concerned the environmental impact and background information on the specimens, as well as the option for students to have an alternative assignment - an option already outlined in education code. 

While the bill didn’t make it out of the legislature, its progress highlights a need for broader and alternative sources of scientific information for our students, sources that balance a host of issues like student reluctance, environmental impact, humane responses towards animals, and cost and research time for alternative assignments.

What many science teachers may not realize is that for many assignments, there is a digital alternative that is free for all California schools – Gale Interactive: Science. This digital platform and teaching tool is part of the State Library’s COMPASS, the California Online Media Program for Access and Student Success. 

In a nutshell, the State Library (partnered with the Riverside County Office of Education) subscribes to school-library online resources for every public school and local library in the state. They include all subjects, from arts to ELA to science.
School-library resources have expanded since the pre-internet days of bound encyclopedias, magazines and journals, and nonfiction books. Today the encyclopedias are online, as are the nonfiction books, magazines, and journals. But there’s more than text, including interactive modules in Gale Interactive: Science.

There are four main sections to the platform: biology, chemistry, earth science, and human anatomy. Each section contains multiple modules. For the subgroup zoology (in biology), there are over 30 organisms or objects to investigate, from earthworms and owl pellets to fetal pigs and frogs. They include other mammals that are beyond a K-12 classroom capacity for hands-on dissection such as cows, dolphins, dogs, and beluga whales. Each module consists of multiple views of the various systems, as well as a self-quiz at the end.

COMPASS at the State Library invites all science teachers to explore Gale Interactive: Science for these projects as well as others in the other branches of science. Combine the learning with other Gale resources too, like National Geographic Kids for younger students or Gale In Context: Environmental Studies for climate change education.

Your district’s IT department should have these three resources set up within the single-sign-on environment for your school. Check with your school or district librarian for assistance. If more help is needed, let the tech leaders know that they can reach out to compass@library.ca.gov for assistance.

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