Human Body Camp Day 6

Some quick notes and resources for our sixth day's topic, which was our Senses, including additional exploration of The Nervous System (sight, hearing, smell) as well as The Vestibular System (balance).

Remember that all of my notes for this main lesson block can be found in much more detail on my website.

We began today by looking further at our Eggmosis experiment (from The Urinary System) and observing our naked egg. This membrane-only duck egg (whose shell had been removed due to weekend stay in a jar of vinegar and which had absorbed water through the membrane and swollen greatly after that shell came off) had been placed in corn syrup overnight.

Because Nature always seeks a balance, water from inside the swollen membrane moved out and into the corn syrup, which also contains water but at a much lower concentration. This left the duck egg shrunken inside a too-big membrane. The jar of corn syrup had a layer of duck egg water floating on top of the denser syrup. My student said she could feel the difference between the two layers when she swished her hand around inside the jar!

When we weighed the deflated duck egg, it had a mass of 59 grams.

shell-on duck egg 93 g

swollen membrane-only duck egg 124 g

deflated membrane-only duck egg 59 g

So... yes! A LOT of water left that egg! More than went into it!!

When she opened up the membrane, we saw that the yolk inside was smaller than a raw duck egg's (we cracked one into another bowl for purposes of comparison). The yolk from the deflated egg was also darker and had a different consistency. She described it as dehydrated, which would make perfect sense if so much water left the duck egg! The raw duck egg yolk was runny. The deflated & dehydrated duck egg yolk was thick and felt like slime (pictured above).

We continued our afternoon by reviewing The Nervous System and doing a few additional activities:

• play The Game of Graces
• look at a very simple animal (the freshwater bearded mussel) and discuss that it has a reflex which causes it to snap shut when tapped -- for self preservation -- but doesn't have a central nervous system and thus cannot feel pain
• look at a more complex animal (a cow) by examining a piece of oxtail and trying to find the nerve in the middle of the marrow
• look at page 27, "Spinal Cord," of the Human Anatomy Coloring Book and examine the vertebra illustration
• look at my MRI on the light table and find my L1/L2 disk bulge
• look at page 28, "Sensation Sites," of the Human Anatomy Coloring Book and examine the eye illustration (#1)
• discuss the optic nerve and read page 90, "Eyes Have It," from Blood and Guts: A Working Guide to Your Own Insides
• do The Blind Spot activity from page 64 of Easy Genius Science Projects with the Human Body
• read pages 87-88, "Depth," from Blood and Guts: A Working Guide to Your Own Insides and do the Keep Your Eye on the Ball activity and the Seeing is Believing activity from page 88
• read page 96, "Eye Defenses," from Blood and Guts: A Working Guide to Your Own Insides and look at transparency of the surface tissue of the brain specializing and becoming the cornea and lens in the developing frog
• return to page 28, "Sensation Sites," of the Human Anatomy Coloring Book and examine the ear illustration (#5)
• discuss the auditory nerve and read pages 97-98, "How the Ear Hears," from Blood and Guts: A Working Guide to Your Own Insides
• tap on a small drum to see how the ear drum works
• read page 102, "Sound Source," from Blood and Guts: A Working Guide to Your Own Insides and describe the results of the Are Two Ears Better Than One activity on page 102
• return to page 28, "Sensation Sites," of the Human Anatomy Coloring Book and examine the nose illustration (#3)
• discuss the olfactory nerve and how the olfactory bulb is the only place on the human body where the brain is directly exposed to air (and this is why the Ancient Egyptians were able to put a hook in the nose and pull out the brain as a part of the mummification process)
• review all vocabulary using the Nervous System three-part cards from the ETC Montessori material for Human Physiology
• read Six Dots: A Story of Young Louis Braille by Jen Bryant and look at two board books in Braille: Animals and On the Move
• discuss the invention of tactile diagrams for art and architecture
• add new information to our giant web

The Vestibular System

read "Balance: The Sense of Upright" chapter from Blood and Guts: A Working Guide to Your Own Insides, stopping as follows:
• before beginning the chapter, do the Montessori Sound Boxes work; the ear hears but also has parts in it for a completely different system
• at the end of page 106, compare the utricle and saccule and otoconia setup to a snow globe
• do the Lag-Behind Effect activity on page 107
• at the top of page 107, imagine making the shapes of the semi-circular canals with play dough and move your hands in all three directions
• at the top of page 108, do the Upright Without Sight activity
• at the top of page 110, balance a pencil on your finger, then do the Equilibrium Appreciation activity
• review all vocabulary using the Vestibular System three-part cards from the ETC Montessori material for Human Physiology (pictured above)

Note: We didn't do this but if your child loves thinking puzzles, The Book of Think: Or How to Solve a Problem Twice Your Size by Marilyn Burns is fun!

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