Lessons - Human Organism

Students will learn about the changes that occur in bones and muscles while people are in space and then apply their knowledge of muscles and bones to suggest preventative solutions for those changes.

Students will compare and contrast the behavior of a water-filled plastic bag, both outside and inside of a container of water, to begin to understand the differences between environments with gravity and with reduced gravity.

Students will design and build an exoskeleton or an endoskeleton for an animal of their own invention.

Students will learn about endoskeletons by observing, comparing and contrasting different kinds of chicken bones, and by relating their chicken bone observations to human bones.

Students will investigate and compare the weight-bearing capacity of solid and hollow cylinders, make inferences about bone structure and observe the interior of cleaned long bones of chickens.

Students will construct a model arm and learn how muscles and bones work together to achieve efficient movement.

Students will learn about the structure of muscles by comparing yarn and cooked meat.

Students will learn about center of gravity and how the body adjusts to the force of gravity to remain balanced.

Students will learn that muscles and bones need to work to stay strong.

Students will learn about the nutritional needs of healthy bones and muscles, and how to make good food choices, especially in terms of getting enough calcium.

Students will observe the dispersion of a drop of food coloring in water, draw conclusions about the movement of dissolved substances, and develop explanations about the importance of organisms' internal transport systems.

Students will learn about the internal structures of the heart, and the roles these structures play in circulating blood to the lungs and the rest of the body.

Students will examine sheep or chicken hearts to learn about the heart's structure and the flow of blood through the heart.

Students will measure their heart rates after a variety of physical activities and compare the results with their resting heart rates, and with the heart rates of other students in their groups.

Students will measure their own blood pressure and learn about the health effects of high blood pressure.

Students will use water balloons to simulate the effects of gravity and microgravity on fluid distribution in the body.

Students will compare how much energy is released as heat from two different food types.

Students will estimate their average daily energy (Calorie) needs.

Students will estimate serving sizes of different foods and compare their estimates to serving size information provided on Nutrition Facts food labels.

Students will document their individual eating habits and learn whether their eating patterns meet their needs.

Students will compare their own eating habits to standard recommendations for a healthy diet.

Students will learn about healthy eating habits to meet special needs, such as for athletes, persons with diabetes and vegetarians.

This pre-assessment/focus activity introduces students to the brain, the most complex organ of the body, and some of its most important functions.

Students are introduced to how messages are sent and received by neurons, and they build a model neuron.

Students create an electrical circuit and investigate how some dissolved substances conduct electricity.

Students play a simple card game to learn the sequence of events in the transmission of nervous system signals.

Students conduct a simulation to demonstrate how multiple incoming signals influence the action of neurons.

Students will estimate risks associated with different events and compare their estimates to the real probabilities.

Students will learn about nutrients important for health by dissecting a slice of pizza.

Students will investigate how changing the time they go to bed impacts their own sleep patterns.

Students will observe that some behaviors and functions of living organisms vary predictably every 24 hours.

Summative assessment activity in which students will review concepts about sleep and daily cycles, and will create their own illustrated poems.

Language arts activity in which students learn from times they have had difficulty sleeping, read about how astronauts sleep in space, and write about unusual places in which they have slept.