Is That Me?Interest Center on Human Body

By Yodit Hizekielyodit.hizekiel@icsaddis.edu.et

The Interest CenterPosters

Task Cards

Internet access

Books

Sample x-ray (more on the table)

Skeleton

Body organs manipulative

Art and writing supplies

Manipulative model

Stop watches, measuring tape

Animal skeletons

Model of skin

Stethoscopes

Task cards

Model of brain

Fingerprints game

Matchinggame

Resources• Various books – non-fiction and fiction, interactive• Magazines, journals, some to be cut up• Human skeleton model• Stethoscope• Charts, posters , diagrams of body organs• Measuring tape, timer• X-rays of bones• Writing and art supplies, stamp pads, fasteners, glue,

chalk, poster board, construction paper, butcher paper etc.

• Computer with internet access• Hand lens• Model of human skin

Task Card

Be a Cardiologist!A cardiologist is a heart doctor. A cardiologist uses a stethoscope to listen the hearts of patients. A stethoscope allows the cardiologist to listen to the heart very clearly.

The challenge:

Find out what kinds of activities make your heart beat fast or slow.

Find the stethoscope and the timer at the center. Use the timer to do one of the activities on the data sheet for 3 minutes. Then listen to your heart for 1 minute and record how many times your heart beats. Do 4 more activities and record the number of times you heart beats in a minute right after the activity.

Use the data sheet to make a graph showing which activities make your heart beat faster and which activities don’t and compare the results of the activities.

Why do you think you had those results?

Activity Heartbeat after activity

Task Card data sheet

Pick from the following activities to do for 3 minutes

Reading quietly hopping on one foot running as fast as you canTaking to a friend singing lying downRunning in place walking around marching

Task Card

The Hip Bone’s Connected to the…Look at the video at this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2ABc5LlNCY Hanna Montana sang a song to remember the names of the bones in the body. The Hanna Montana song is accurate.

The challenge:

Make another version of the first song, or learn the song as it is.

Find materials that tell you the names of the bones in the human body. Using the information from the books and the chart, write your own song that tells the names of the bones.

OR write down the words to the song, and learn it.

Maybe you can even come up with a dance to go with the song that you can perform!

Task Card

Life Size Art!Throughout the past and the present artist have made may kinds of models of the human body. Sometimes they used clay, sometimes they paint of draw, or sometimes they use other materials like crumbled paper or string.

The challenge:

You will make a life size 3 dimensional model of the human body

Find the white butcher paper as the center. Have a friend lay down on the sheet and trace the outline of their body. Be accurate.

Next use a book or a diagram that shows the different organs in the body. Make a life size model of the human body. using the art supplies at the center and using the books and charts as a reference.

Use the other art supplies to make your model as real looking as possible.

Task Card

Sport Talent Search!Talent scouts are people who travel to different places trying to find people who they think have a talent for a certain things such as drama. Sports talent scouts search for people who they think will be good at paying a certain sport.

The challenge:

Try to predict who can be the best at long jump from your friends just by measuring some part of their body.

Find the measuring tape and the talent prediction sheet at the center. Find some friends that are willing to be a part of your investigation. Make measurements of different parts of their body and add the information to the prediction sheet. Make your predictions.

Have your potential talented athletes do a long jump a measure their results.

Compare that to your Prediction and to the measurement that you did. How did you do?

Task Card- Talent Search Prediction Sheet

Name Measure Measure Measure Long jumpMeasure

Prediction

As a sports talent scout, predict that ___________________

Task Card

Web Quest!Kent.k12.wa.us/staff/juliegraff/webquest/intro.htm

The challenge:

Follow the link to complete the web quest.

Task Card

Make a Match!Games are good ways to remember science facts. You can play a game that is about the human body, or you can create your own matching game

The challenge:Find the Matching game and play it.

Can you make a matching game of your own that will help you remember parts of the human body? You can use the sheet labeled major organs of the human body to get ideas.

Use the supplies to make one and then play it with a friend.

Task Card

Muscle Measure!You have muscles all over your body. You use your muscles to move, so you are using your muscles all the time. But what happens to a muscle when it is working?

The challenge:To find out what happens to muscles as we move them

Find the tape measure, and a friend that will help you. Roll up your sleeves and ask your friend to measure the distance around the biggest part of your upper arm. This is your first measurement.

Bend your arms at the elbow and have your friend measure the distance around your muscle as you flex your muscle tightly.Record your two measurements.

What do you notice?

Task Card

Printing Your Prints!Did you know that no one in the world had the exact same fingerprints as you? Each persons fingerprints are different. However, scientists have divided fingerprints into different types.

The challenge:To see if you can figure out what types of fingerprints you have.

Find the stamp pad and the hand shaped sheets of white paper. Press your fingers one at a time on stamp pad, and make a print of each of your finger prints on the hand shaped paper. Find the cards that have the types of fingerprints on them, and observe the prints you made with the hand lens.Can you identify which kind of prints you have?

Task Card

Mystery Prints!You are a detective! When a crime has been committed, sometimes detectives can find fingerprints that the criminal left at the scene of the crime. Then, they can use the prints to figure out who did the crime.

The challenge:A crime has been committed! Your job is to see if you can identify who did the crime by looking at the fingerprints that were found and comparing them to the fingerprints of some suspects

Find the envelope labeled “Mystery Prints”. These are the prints found at the scene of the crimeFind the envelope labeled “Suspects”. These are the prints of the people that are suspects. They might have done the crime.Observe all the prints closely until you find the prints that match the mystery prints.Who did the crime?

Task Card

Building Time!Observe the model of a human skeleton. Notice that there are many different kinds of bones with many sizes and shapes

The challenge:Make a model if the human skeleton using toothpicks, and clay and other materials. Use the clay, the toothpicks and any other art supplies to make a model of the human skeleton.

You will need to be creative.

Task Card

X-Ray!Did you know that doctors take x-ray pictures to see inside the human body? X-rays take pictures of your bones. For example if someone breaks a bone, an X-ray allows the doctor to see which bone is broken and how badly it is broken

The challenge:Make your own imitation X-ray.

First find the real X-ray pictures and observe them closely. Can you seethe bones? Can you tell if any of the bones are broken?

You can use the lack paper and the white chalk to make one of your own that looks real.

Task Card

Internet Explorations!If you discovered a heap of human bones, would you know how to put them together in the correct positions? Here is your chance to see.

The challenge:Find the folder with the task cards that says “Internet Explorations” to find websites that will allow you to put a skeleton together on line. They getter harder and harder as you go along.

Task Card

Science Online!

The challenge:Find the sheet that says “Science Online”Follow the directions on the sheet to do some research about the human heart

Task Card

Multicultural Collage!Look at the jar at the interest center that is human skin. The skin is the largest organ in the human body and covers us completely, but there are many shades and colors of skin. Melanin is a coloring in the human body that makes our skin the color it is. The more melanin a person has, the darker their skin will be.

The challenge:Make a collage with pictures from the magazines at the center. Find pictures of people with different skin colors. Cut out the faces and arrange then so they slightly overlap each other, and glue them on poster board

Task Card

Genes and Funny Faces!Look around the classroom. Do you see that everyone looks different because of their facial features? Some people have black eye, some have brown eye, and some have blue or another color. The shape of our noses are different, and the shapes of our lips and our ears. Even our faces are shaped differently. This is because of your genes. You get genes from you parents that decide what you look like.

The challenge:Look in some of the books and find out exactly what genes are. Then write the definition on a poster board. Then and make a some funny faces using pictures from the magazines under your definition. Cut out different features from different faces in the magazines, and glue them together to make a face. (Warning - It might look funny!)

Task Card

Library help!You have 5 senses. They are the sense of sight, the sense of hearing, the sense of touch, the sense of smell, and the sense of taste. Find a book in the center called “Your Amazing Senses” by Ron and Atie van der Meer. The book is about your sense, but it has lots of activities, puzzles and tricks you can do. Look through the book and do the activities and the puzzles in it. Enjoy it.

The challenge:Mr. Doug the librarian wants to know if this is book that we need to order for the library. Write a letter to Mr. Doug telling him what you think. Should we order the book or not? Make sure to give him reasons why or why not and try to convince him to either order the book or not to order the book.

Task Card

It’s Latin!Find the poster that tells of the different Latin names for the parts of the body. In science, there are a lot of words that we use that came from the language Latin. These words are sometime in the middle of the word, or they are at the beginning of a word (prefix) or at the end (suffix). For example “ped” or pod means foot. That is where we get the word “pedal”. For example the poster tells you that “dent” means tooth. That is where we get the word “dentist”. Can you think of others?

The challenge:You are a word inventor. Think of new words that you cam make using the Latin words. Combine them with other words or word parts that you know. Then make a list with the definitions to share OR write a story or sentences using these created words.

Task Card

You choose!At there interest center there are a few books that have activities for you to do. Find one of the books that has an activity that sounds interesting to you, or find a worksheet that you think you might enjoy doing.

The challenge:You choose which activity you would like to do. If it is an art activity, make sure that all the supplies you need are at the center. If you are doing a worksheet, make sure to show Ms. Hizekiel when you are finished

Enjoying the learning…

Students were working in groups as well as working independently. They were giving up their recess time to stay in the classroom and learn more about the human body. They were interested and tried many of the tasks.

Enjoying the learning….

Students were excited about what they were learning and anxious to share their discoveries both with each other and with me. Some even asked to take home materials, or to do more investigations at home.

Effects on student AY• AY was surprisingly quiet the first day that the center was available for use. When

other students could not wait to begin a project and begin working on a task, AY did not even come into the classroom. This had me worried because I thought that maybe I did not design it well enough to attract her attention and peek her interest.

• The next day however, everything changed, she did not go out to recess either in the morning or midday. She began her work very slowly and deliberately. Se looked around until she found a task card that she liked. I though she would jump to the drama or music related tasks, but she chose tasks that needed a lot of analytical thinking, and discovery. She worked alone at first, and was joined by others as she worked.

• In addition, as was the rule, she asked to go to the interest center and continue her work after she finished her regular work in the classroom during class time. I was pleased to see that she worked on the same task that she had not finished, and that her work was again very deliberate.

• She was definitely engaged, and I saw her very focused in the tasks she chose to do.• I saw very clearly that she learns in a very purposeful way and I realized that I may

not see her engaged right away, but I need to give her a little time until she knows exactly what she wants to do.

• Since the first time I introduced the interest center, YW was very interested. He was disappointed that he had to wait another day after I took one day to introduce the center and go over management and rules concerning the center. He wanted to begin right away.

• I expected him to pick choices that would have him building or making something, but he chose manipulative tasks. Manipulative was one of his interests and strengths. He would walk around the room with his task, as he decided how to go about it.

• Often he would come to me, and share what a great thing he discovered, and I saw him often telling other students of what he had found out.

• He used a lot of the knowledge he already a in the subject to understand, and he make connection to is task, and took the things he found even deeper than before.

• There were 2 days where Y W had to stay inside during recess because of incomplete homework. Because he did not want to waste the time wanting to work at the center, YW finished his tasks in record speed before heading to the center. This was quite an accomplishment because YW oftn struggle with making good use of his time,

• YW was at the center ever single day it was available and if does not look like he lost interest therefore I have deiced to keep the center up for a while longer as long as YW is motivated.

Effects on student YW