Students at a high school in Germany said goodbye to a person that has served the community over the past 60 years: their classroom skeleton.
This isn’t your ordinary classroom skeleton though. The skeleton contained the real bones of an unknown woman. She was buried in a small coffin that featured symbols of all major world religions. The skeleton has been an educational specimen for multiple generations of bright, young students.
Around 80 students, teachers and other town officials took part in the ceremony at Schleiden’s Protestant Cemetery. The skeleton was dubbed Anh Bian, which in Vietnamese means “mysterious peace,” and had been a part of the school’s biology department since 1952.
“We are indeed laying to rest a member of the school community to their grave,” Pastor Oliver Joswig said.
For years, students had been advocating for the woman’s remains to be buried in a respectful way, but the ongoing pandemic continued to delay plans. DNA samples were taken from the bones and the school is hoping to learn more about the origins of the skeleton once they receive the results back.
Moving forward, biology lessons will now be conducted using a plastic model of the human body.
Source: https://apnews.com/article/science-religion-education-biology-e7734fbff8ab18d687f3b7c1763bd80c