AR-News: [interniche- Finally some good news

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From: Tamir Lousky
ns_tamirl at bezeqint.net
To: "InterNICHE Gen pub list" 
interniche-l at interniche.org

Dear all!

After quite a long time of still standing status quo in the field of animal
use in education in Israel,
There have been some encouraging developments.

The most encouraging of all, is the consent of a zoology professor from the
Hebrew university's
faculty of agriculture, to cancel a pigeon dissection lab and purchase the
whole package of
videos of the excellent Vertebrate Dissection Guide series, with the money
he saved.
The professor was so impressed by the quality of the videos, that he
immediately decided
to divide the class into an "experiment group" consisting half of the
students (that studied
exclusively with the videos), and a "control group" that continued
dissecting the animals.

Now that the semester has ended, he told us that next year's lab might be
completely
Animal-free!
Needless to say, all the videos we demonstrated were borrowed from
Interniche's
International loan system. Over 1,000 students study at the faculty of
agriculture's
undergraduate programs, that include: animal science, nutrition science,
biochemistry and
plant science.

In addition, after three years of struggling against the faculty staff at
the Tel-Aviv university's
school of human medicine, the faculty dean finally declared to the public
and press that next year,
the last education lab that still includes harmful animal use will be
replaced by an alternative
non-animal lab program. Over the past 3 years, two additional animal labs
have been
replaced and canceled. With the desired transition, the Tel-Aviv uni' school
of medicine
will become the 2nd school of medicine in Israel that ceased using animals
entirely, out of
four such schools.

More from Tel-Aviv University:
After another student struggle, the undergraduate biology program at TAU
does not include
any mandatory courses that involves harmful animal use in education. This is
the first biology
department in my country that officially allows gaining an undergraduate
biology degree
without any harmful animal uses, and without penalty. A number of
non-official  agreements
have been made in other academic institutes.

On the less positive side of things:
- Although many teachers received the new version of "From guinea pig to
Computer mouse",
the book has not been distributed as thoroughly as I would like (can't blame
anyone but myself).
- It seems the plans to establish a local loan system are not progressing
anywhere, due to difficulty
in raising funds for the project.

But, nevertheless, the recent developments are hope inspiring.
With luck and effort, things will continue progressing this way!

Wishing you all a lovely week,

Tamir Lousky
Interniche Israel


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the wild, cruel beast is not behind the bars of the cage. he is in front of it - axel munthe

"Never doubt that a small group of dedicated citizens can change the world. 
Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."      Margaret Mead
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