The renal or urinary system is such an important system in our body. We certainly didn't want to skip it. I printed out some information on this system for L to read as well as a little diagram. Then it was on to the experiments.
First off L drank a large glass of water. She recorded the time and then waited to see how long it would take her kidneys to work!
While she was waiting she mixed some sand in with a glass of water that we coloured yellow. She poured it carefully into a coffee filter and watched how the filter cleaned the water just like the kidneys clean the blood and create urine.
Yuck! This is what our kidney/coffee filter cleaned.
A few months back while we were doing the circulatory system I called the local butcher asking if they had any cow hearts we could dissect. A few weeks later I forgot all about it. Three days ago they called and said our cow heart was ready!! Yippee. We did a quick prep on how to do a dissection and then prepared our workspace. L made up labels on straws to go in the aorta, pulmonary artery, pulmonary vein and the superior vena cava.
I then cut the heart in half so we could see the four different chambers. We compared the huge size of the cow heart to our own hearts.
L took samples of the blood, heart muscle and some fat and then we made slides.
After the clean up and a bit of a play with her friend who joined us for the dissection they moved inside and inspected each of the samples under the microscope.
This whole experience was fascinating and it was so cool to get to see a real heart to help us understand how our own hearts work inside our bodies!
Wow it is mid boggling to me that you were able to procure a cow heart and cut and explore it with your students! Hip Hip Hooray for hands on science, I will certainly be implementing your urinary track experiment, many thanks!
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