When a twelve year old student wakes up in the morning and goes to middle school, they really don’t expect much. They know they will face to pressures of fitting in, their clothes, the homework and projects they are putting off and the inevitable substitute teacher assignments they will most likely endure.

Not many of these kids come to school expecting to perform hip and knee surgery in a realistic, professional environment. Edheads.com offers two medical surgeries mentioned above, crash scene investigations, simple machines and mechanics and more. Students have so many choices staring back at them through the Internet Explorer icon. I know a product is successful when they choose – over watching another Beyonce video or their favorite anime cartoon – to perform hip surgery on a flash-based patient.

The students go step by step through the entire surgery. There is no cheese factor like many other simulations. They get down and dirty – are grossed out by the real-life photos from real surgery – and then move on, finish and want more.

The middle school grade level is all about exposure to what is out there. You can’t google something you don’t know about. Using simulations like Edheads to reach out to students and say, “This is a job someone has to perform. Maybe it could be you,” is a powerful tool and is masterfully accomplished with this simulation. My students can’t wait for open heart surgery and maybe even a little gastric bypass. The grosser the better.