Chicks and Cow Eyes Shouldn’t Be Used in Museum Exhibits

Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry (MSI) still uses animals in its programs, including by dissecting cow eyes—which are obtained from slaughterhouses—and repeatedly hatching chicks in its Genetics and the Baby Chick Hatchery exhibit. What the museum doesn’t tell visitors is that the chicks are killed shortly afterward. As many as 8,000 chicks are hatched and killed for this exhibit every single year.

MSI’s website has a page titled “The Vital Importance of Science” and encourages critical thinking, yet the museum shirks sustainable, humane, animal-free methods like the Chick Life Cycle Exploration Set. It says that its vision is to “inspire and motivate our children to achieve their full potential in science,” but it hypocritically continues to expose them to the body parts of slaughtered animals and to hatch vulnerable baby chicks, even though technologically advanced options are readily available.

Peer-reviewed literature confirms that students who use modern non-animal dissection methods perform better in learning assessments than those who dissect animals. Studies show that as many as 25% of secondary school students object to dissecting animals and that doing so can dissuade them from pursuing a career in biology or health sciences. Companies and classrooms that back animal dissection—an archaic practice that’s irrelevant to today’s world of modern technology—are failing both students and animals.

Join PETA as well as concerned visitors—including Adalea Khoo, who visited MSI, documented the cruelty, and even created an Instagram account—in urging the museum to use only superior, humane educational exhibits.

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