Enrichment Ideas for Human Body
Science
Expand the boundaries of your kit study. Encourage your
students' curiosity with these outlets for extending
engagement in research.
circulatory system | digestive system | musculo-skeletal system | respiratory system | the senses (nervous system) | health and nutrition
Circulatory System
Virtual Cardiology Lab
Howard Hughes Medical Institute has produced this
wonderful virtual
cardiology lab for junior high school students and
more advanced learners. Put yourself in the
role of an intern examining three different
patients with a doctor who
provides information and guidance along the way.
Just as a doctor would,
you gather clues from tools such as genetic
information, EKG, and MRI and
apply the evidence to make your best diagnosis.
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Digestive System
Pretzel Predictions
This very simple-to-do activity offers fun and
engaging investigations of food. While focusing
with on eating pretzels, students can't help but
learn surprising things about the initial
processes of digestion (chewing and saliva
production).
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Musculo-Skeletal
System
Animal Hands
(Note: This site requires Acrobat
Reader.)
Click on "Free!" in the sidebar, then choose "Free Image Processing Lessons" to reach Animal Hands. When you are
doing some of the kit experiments focused on hand bones and
joints, this is a fun extension to encourage students to
apply what they've
figured out about their own hands to the functions of other
animals' hoofs,
wings, flippers, and feet. In this activity, students use
real x-rays of
different animal "hands" to examine the relationship between
structure and
function. As written, the activity is intended for very
high level middle
or high school biology classes, but the images can be used
in a much more
basic way as well. Look especially at the image
descriptions on pp. 39-40
and the table on p. 43 to see the sorts of clues that x-rays
offer.
The x-ray images themselves are fairly large files stored
separately
here.
Downloading
it will give you a file that has been compressed using
WinZip. You will need
to unzip it (you may have to install WinZip on you computer)
to view the
individual picture (.TIF) files. It sounds like a lot of
effort, but most
of the images are very good. Alternately, you could use the
ideas put
forth in the activity write-up and apply them to x-rays from
a local vet or
zoo.
Skeletons and Bones
Enchanted Learning offers a
few K-3 bone-related arts and crafts ideas, but the best
reason to go to this site is perhaps to see the renditions
of bird and dinosaur skeletons, which could be fun for your
students to compare against human bones.
Cleaning Bones
While working in the classroom with the owl pellets, you
might want to have
other types of animal bones to compare and contrast. Ask a
butcher for
uncut bones, save the whole skeleton from your roasted
chicken dinner, or
ask a local wildlife preserve if they have any skeletal
remains, then use
this site to help you clean, disinfect and preserve bones
for years of use.
Cleaning Bones Faster
Need to clean some bones quickly for an investigation? This
page offers a
much less complicated cleaning method. This way does not do
as beautiful a job, and does not preserve the bones as well
as the site
above, but will result in safe specimens for your
class.
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Respiratory System
Lung Pictures
Looking to emphasize the bodily health risks from smoking?
This site, by the author of a quit-smoking book, shows some
dramatic images of healthy lungs vs. smokers' lungs. Scroll
to the bottom of the page to begin the tour. Unfortunately,
there isn't much in the way of text explanation, but the
images speak for themselves.
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The Senses (Nervous
System)
Neuroscience for Kids: The Senses
From the University of
Washington, this site offers loads of neat activities that
can help you extend your exploration of the five senses with
your students. There are activities suitable for all grades,
from kindergarten through high school.
Minutes from ME: Coming to Our Senses
An educator offers
stimulating exploration ideas for investigating the five
senses. Students can read this page and explore the senses
on their own, or you could guide your class through some of
the activities.
Preschool Five Senses Activities
If you're working with
Insights' The Senses kit, you might find some of these
activities to be engaging extensions to your kit. Suggested
activities will help to engage the students while helping
you reinforce the idea of scientists as careful observers
and masters of the descriptive word. Several activities also
include songs and relevant storytime book
recommendations.
An Inch of Skin
A clever variation on the
standard test of nerve distance (skin sensitivity), this
very cool experiment (which aligns to the National Science
Education Standards) encourages students to investigate the
different types of nerve receptors—heat, pressure, and
pain—in a small square inch of skin.
The Six Magic Dots of Braille
The Canadian National
Institute for the Blind created this handy page that
explains braille's history, the braille system and alphabet
(including numbers and punctuation). If you and your
students would like to test your fingertip nerves, contact a
school for the blind or a library near you to obtain a real
sample of raised braille text and see if you can discern one
letter from another just by touching.
Craft Recipes
This site offers a wide selection of
recipes for tactile
exploration. Have your students explore the properties of
materials like
homemade play dough, glue, and slime.
Test
Your Color Vision
Did you know that color
vision deficiencies occur in about one in eleven males and
about one in one hundred females? This site shows samples of
the tests used to evaluate color vision. You could ask your
students to try to explain what differences they see among
the examples that might explain why some people can't see
them.
How to See 3D "Magic Eye" Art
This site included in the
Optometrists Network reveals the secrets of using your eyes
to interpret the hidden pictures in "Magic Eye" art, while
giving thoroughly accessible and scientific explanations.
Don't miss the
3D art gallery to test out what you've learned.
Cow's Eye Dissection
Are you planning to
investigate the parts of the eye? The Exploratorium provides
an online dissection of a cow's eye (not to replace but
enhance the dissection experience). It's a fascinating tour,
but not for the squeamish. Although the images are not big
enough to guide your scalpel, the site is enhanced with
optional audio explanations and information about how to
obtain eyes for your class. On the main page, there's also a
cow's eye interactive primer that you can download, separate
from the step-by-step dissection. (Note: Not all platforms
can display the primer.)
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Health and Nutrition
The Food Label
Have you ever wondered why some foods can be labeled "low-
fat" or "light," while some can claim to "lower the risk of
heart attacks"? The Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
outlines federal regulations controlling what information
must be present in commercial food labels and what claims
may not be made. Click on a sample label for a more detailed
explanation of the information each section provides. While
you are studying the properties of fats and carbohydrates
using the kits, help make the connection to the real world
and the grocery store.
BrainPOP: Health
Requiring both the Flash
plug-in and sound, this site might be too intensive for some
users. But if your computer and connection can manage it,
this site is excellent. The Health section of BrainPOP
offers dozens of kid-oriented animated movies about a huge
spectrum of health topics like broken bones, cells,
digestion, diabetes, drug abuse, genetics, and puberty, just
to name a few. All of the movies were created directly in
response to questions that kids asked.
Kitchen Chemistry
This site offers examples of food chemistry demonstrations
and experiments that involve everyday foods like veggies,
cereal, candy, and ice cream. The scout leader who compiled
these experiments also includes some helpful tips and
reference sources along with each.
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