Teaching kit for understanding the embryonic early development of domestic animals

Abstract

This paper presents a didactic strategy to contribute to the better understanding of the early embryonic events in the development of domestic animals. It was developed and applied to the Veterinary Medicine undergraduate program in the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil. Therefore, clay models were made presenting morphological aspects of the early embryo development, such as the fertilized cell, early cleavage, blastocyst and germ layers formation, amniotic cavity, extraembryonic
coelom and corium development. The kit is an innovation because it presents different characteristics when compared to the models widely marketed and used for teaching human embryology, as it demonstrates peculiarities observed only in domestic animals, such as the blastocyst elongation process, the formation of amniotic folds for the development of the amniotic cavity formation. The developed kit was applied in class and was accepted by veterinary medicine undergraduates as a favorable element of learning early embryology.