Room 5 - Up Close and Personal with our Insides!

As part of the ACE Programme and in conjunction with the Life Education Bus visiting, the Year 7 & 8 kids have been lucky enough to get up close and in-depth with the workings of our body!

A massive thank you goes to our visiting guest expert from the University of Otago - Toni-Ann Alsop.

Our first session - THE BRAIN!

Learning the main parts of the brain included a dissection to see how many of the key regions we could identify.

The next set of photos show us learning that the human brain is highly adaptable. This activity demonstrates how the brain adapts to a new situation. Here we are investigating how the simple act of walking toward a target, or throwing a ball can get very tricky while wearing prism goggles!

How can we trick the brain - we participated in some very cool experiments that fooled the brain!  We made people's heads disappear, and made coke taste sour! 
One experiment explained the rationale behind our blind spot, the other about how our body and brain respond to sweetness and its energy.

Our second session - THE LUNGS!

Our next session started again with a dissection.  We were able to find and identify the different parts of the lungs, the trachea, and even the oesophagus. We pumped up the lungs to show how they worked with an old bicycle pump!

Below are some pictures of us making lung models.

We also investigated the Carbon Dioxide levels of exhaled air.
In this experiment we used cabbage water to test for the presence of carbon dioxide. 
We took a straw and blew into the water as hard as we could for a minute or two.  The  carbon dioxide, which can dissolve in water, reacts to form an acid. 
So, after blowing into the water several times, the solution changed colour as there is more acid than was before. 

Our last session - INTESTINES!

This last session really put us out of our comfort zone!  We first looked at the structure of the intestines and identified how the walls of the intestines help mix and push food along to help take absorbed nutrients away.

We explored how intestines can't get tangled because of how they are attached to the wall by the mesenteries.

We did an experiment to mimic the segmentation and peristalsis movements of the intestines by using marbles and water.

Lastly, we did a simple digestive enzyme experiment - to show how saliva helps with the break down of food using amylase.

WARNING: Only look at the following photos if you have a strong stomach!

Drawing our digestive system .....

Being introduced to the intestines.....

Finding out what our intestines do and how they do it .....

The one and only time we are allowed to spit at school .....

A massive thank you goes to Toni-Ann.  Without her expertise and help, we would never have been able to get this close to our insides.  We learnt absolute heaps.

• Not only about how our bodies work
• How to manage ourselves appropriately in times we find challenging
• How to give things a go even when we are not sure if we want to - a great dose of resilience 
• How people who work in the medical department of the University need a strong stomach!