The Systems of the Body

 SCIENCE

We have been learning the systems of the body. Last time I told you about the muscular system and the skeletal system, now let's cover the other systems!

First we learned about the nervous system. Dustin got me this awesome model of the brain which really helped explain things. I feel like I was so much better at knowing about the brain now that I've taken all those psychology classes. Especially my cognitive psychology class---by the way, of subject but I'm on the waiting list for my master's program! Keep your fingers crossed!---

We talked about memory, and how you have a better memory if you can put things into a picture or story. That was what all these shapes is about. Also, I had all of my crew make "brain hats" that are really awesome that map out where everything is in your brain. And also, we have a cat now...not sure if I've mentioned that before....but she likes to be in the centre of things. Especially when I'm trying to get ready for things.

And now for the dissections. I again got my butcher friend to help me out. Here is me planning all the different dissections I'm going to need:

For the excretory system, we digested kidneys. I will never forget four years ago when we did this and soon after I got huge kidney stones. As I was cutting one of the kidneys open, I accidentally squirted Abraham with what was most likely urine from the kidney! He won't forget that any time soon! 

And since the skin's sweat is part of the excretory system, we talked about skin too and talked about our unique finger prints.

Then we learned about the respiratory system. I got lungs connected to the heart and trachea. This was absolutely the most involved and bloody dissection of the year, and one kid started dry heaving. THAT's never happened before!!! We saved the hear for next class, but we tried to fill up the lungs with air. It didn't work quite as well as it did four years ago.

Then we learned about the circulatory system. This is when we dissected the heart. We also did other things, like seeing if we were as fast as a heart beat at moving liquid from one place to another. 

And we learned a bit about blood. (I went over time...I always do...) I taught them about blood types and I had three blood test kits. I had two people get their blood tested, but they were both O-. I thought I did the test wrong. What are the chances that both kids (William and Rosina) would have O-, the most rare kind of blood?! But the next week, we tested one more kid, and they ended up to be A+, so I think I did it right. I made the mistake of saying "If William and Rosy get married, all of their kids would be O-" which made William give a huge smile and say "I didn't say it!" since he has a crush on Rosina. Rosina had no comment.

The next week we learned about the digestive system. I just got a liver from the store. We learned about how long the small intestines are. That's what this photo is supposed to show.

And we also talked about the importance of teeth as part of digestion, which is a good excuse to get out disclosure tablets, which the kids LOVE.

And we did an experiment with the liver that worked really well. We basically made a volcano from liver parts and hydrogen peroxide and then we proved it turned into oxygen by reigniting some fire with the oxygen.

That leaves just the reproduction system left.

My little group was NOT about to get an anatomy lesson about the reproduction system. In fact, I always put up this poster:

And my little people almost died of embarrassment from it. I had to explain quite sternly that there was nothing naughty about it, and gave a little lecture about when things were not naughty, but they still were squeamish. 

SO I strictly stayed to DNA and heredity when talking about the reproductive system.

I had them make a DNA strand from themselves, and I think this is by far the BEST way to explain DNA and how it replicates. 

Also, we talked about dominant and recessive. I even had them get into pairs and roll dice to find out if their genes went into their "babies" that they made together! Hahahaha

Oh, and that's Abraham in that photo up there, with his DNA he made out of candy.