Interactive: Organ Systems at Work

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Interactive: Organ Systems at Work

Duration: Approximately 55 minutes

Use this interactive, online activity to explore how tissues and organs function together in related groups called systems. Different organs perform specific roles within a system. All those roles add up to a more general service the system performs for the organism.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Students examine how different systems of the human body interact. They understand the complexity of the human body and how all its systems must function together to perform properly. In multicellular organisms, the body is a system of multiple interacting subsystems; these subsystems are groups of cells that work together to form tissues and organs that are specialized for particular body functions. (NGSS MS-LS1.A) Developing and Using Models: Modeling tools are used to develop questions, predictions and explanations; analyze and identify flaws in systems; and communicate ideas. Models are used to build and revise scientific explanations and proposed engineered systems. Measurements and observations are used to revise models and designs. (NGSS SEP)

Teacher Tips

You can have students choose riddles from a slide or by drawing slips from a pile. If the latter, the Six Body System Riddles sheet should be pre-cut into 6 slips. These slips will be drawn at random by the students or assigned.
- You may want to print out two or three copies to cover the number of groups your class will have. For example, if you have 28 students, you can print two copies of the sheet to distribute slips to cover 12 groups (working in pairs and threes).
Familiarize yourself with how to navigate a Google map or an OpenStreetMap before presenting the first activity to the class. Consider comparing the provided map to one of your own community (or, if you live in New York City, look at Tokyo or a small town). Students love seeing satellite images of their town or city and if they do live in an urban setting, they will see how complicated or simple the system is.
If you are unable to use tablets or computers for the interacting systems, you can print out the body images for the students to use. Ideally these would be printed on slightly translucent paper or transparencies, placed against a bright window or light table.
While the model doesn't use audio, some teachers find that using headphones helps students concentrate while interacting with computers.
There have been several touring exhibits with plastinated human bodies that have been documented online in images and videos. They are known variously as Body Worlds and Bodies Revealed. You may opt to share these as an extension to this activity, or allow your students to interact with some of the detailed three-dimensional models that have been made online, such as this Cadaver Vasculature posted by Sketchfab and Science Friday.

Materials (one per student or group)

electronic device (such as computer, laptop, tablet) to access interactive body diagram

- Or printouts of the body images on slightly translucent paper or transparencies AND a bright window, a light table, or an old-school overhead projector.
printer (if making maps of interacting organ systems to print out, which can be skipped)

Teacher Tune-ups

Introduce mapping complex systems (10 minutes)

In OpenStreetMap, use the layers icon along the right side to see the different options (Standard / Cycle / Transport /Humanitarian) for viewing data.
In Google maps, use the hamburger icon in the upper left corner to see the different options for viewing data.

Map of New York City

Accessing different map viewsOpenStreetMap

Google maps

Explore the interactive body (20 minutes)

Interactive Human Body

In this part of the activity, students will begin to consider how complex the human body is and how its complexity is often taken for granted. Things just seem to function day after day, year after year, until something disrupts one or more of the systems – just as in a city the subway moves or traffic flows, until it doesn't.

Connect the mapping introduction to the human body interactive. Ask students to discuss:

Have the students open the Interactive Human Body activity. Paraphrase:

Scientists classify the systems of the human body in various ways. Eleven organ systems of the human body are pictured on your screens. You can blend different systems together. Add each system by moving its slider to the right. Read about what makes each system unique, and take notes.

If your students need more guidance in how to get started, have them select either a female or male integumentary system. Next add the muscular system. What happens when you add another system? What happens when you remove a system? Have students play with the available options before reading about function and parts.

The interactive activity was designed for students working as individuals, pairs, or triads to explore on an electronic device. However, you may not be able to use electronic devices in your classroom, so a printable version is included below. Of course, it does not have the same variable opacity of the interactive activity.

You might consider printing the layers on clear printer paper, sold as "computer-printable transparent plastic sheets" or "transparency film." If using this method, consider backing the explanatory text with opaque paper to aid legibility.

Alternatively, if you have an overhead projector or light table at your school, you can use that for students to lay the different systems on top of one another and see how systems co-locate. Finally, a last option is to let students lay the sheets on a large window on a non-gloomy day. Using standard paper, up to 5 sheets of paper might be somewhat translucent when backlit, but you'll get the best results when you overlay just 2 or 3 sheets at a time.

Some teachers opt to have the physical layers available to all groups regardless of whether the students also use electronic devices. If you make these tangible layers part of the activity, extend the time by five minutes. And have an overhead projector or light table on hand.

Make maps of two interacting organ systems (10 minutes)

In this part of the activity, students figure out what two systems function together in a given riddle. With the ability to explore with the interactive, they will find the answer and then they can illustrate it using the sliders in the interactive.

Show the slide with the six brain teasers of two systems working together.

Create groups of two to three students each. Assign numbers 1–6 to your student groups. It's perfectly fine to have two different groups tackle the same puzzle, so you can have more than six groups.

If you would like to use slips of paper rather than assigning numbers from the slide, divide by 6 the number of students or student groups who will be making the maps of interacting organ systems and round up. Print out that many copies of this sheet, then cut each sheet into 6 slips. Then distribute one slip to each group. For example, if you have 28 students who will work in pairs and groups of 3, you can print two copies of interacting systems sheet for 12 groups. The slips can be drawn at random by the students or assigned.

Each group will tackle one of these six descriptions of how two unnamed organ systems interact.

Paraphrase:

First, figure out which two of five organ systems (see green box) are described.

Then, use the sliders on the interactive human body to create a diagram that shows both of the systems. Take a screenshot of your diagram to print out and label before adding to our board.

Hint: you may not want the sliders all the way to one side or another.

If your students are not familiar with taking a screenshot, demonstrate how to do so with your particular devices before having them solve the riddles. If it is not possible to take a screenshot or to print out the screenshot, you may have to skip the human-map-making!

As in the last section, the interactive diagram was designed to be used on an electronic device. However, you may not be able to use electronic devices in your classroom, so your students can skip the instruction to make diagrams.

Pulling Apart Systems

cardiovascularnervousrespiratorydigestivemuscular

Blood vessels carry nutrients (like glucose) and oxygen to the muscle cells that need them. Blood vessels take away carbon dioxide and waste from muscle cells.
The brain checks up on the amount of carbon dioxide in the blood and adjusts the rate of breathing. The brain “communicates” with the lungs using nerves from the brain to lungs.
Blood vessels carry red blood cells to the lungs, to get rid of carbon dioxide and pick up oxygen that has been breathed in. The heart pumps red blood cells carrying oxygen from lungs to all cells in the body and back to the lungs once the oxygen has been used up.
Blood vessels deliver nutrients and oxygen for all the intestinal cells to function. Blood in blood vessels picks up nutrients absorbed by the intestines and carries them away to other parts of the body that need them.
Nerves send messages to muscles to tell them how and where to move. Nerves check up on the body’s need for oxygen in the muscles and adjust breathing rate and heart rate as needed.
The brain tells the stomach, intestines, and liver when to be active and when to rest. Messages to and from the brain decide when it’s time to process food.

Showing Two Systems

Show students how to show two systems in one "map" of the body, using the interactive diagram with sliders.

Share maps of two interacting organ systems (10 minutes)

As the students finish the activity, ask them to share their two-system diagrams mapping the two systems. Consider having them print out and then post their diagrams and blurb directly onto the projected chart. Or you can make the chart a shared Google doc that they can add their images and text to.

When students solve the riddle and then share with the class, ask them to explain why they chose the two systems they did. What was their thought process?

As the table is completed, whether or not the students have made diagrams, use the sliders to show what each pair of organ systems look like together.

Solution:

Cardiovascular + Muscular
Nervous + Respiratory
Cardiovascular + Respiratory
Cardiovascular + Digestive
Nervous + Muscular
Nervous + Digestive

Or, to fill in the chart:

	Cardiovascular	Nervous
Respiratory	3	2
Digestive	4	6
Muscular	1	5

Mapping Interacting Functions of the Body's Organ Systems

Cardiovascular Nervous
Respiratory
Digestive
Muscular

Wrap-up: Our bodies react (10 minutes)

In this part of the activity, students expand what they just learned about how different systems in our body must work together so that we can function the way we do as a whole system. This activity can be done as a writing exercise or a class discussion.

Pose situations to your students as a class, or distribute different scenarios to different students to give them a chance to consider their answers in greater depth.

Encourage the students to use the interactive slider to review the body systems and consider what role each one might play in the interaction. Some of these scenarios may involve two or three body systems, and a case can be made that others may involve nearly all of the systems of the body! Whatever answers they come up with, have students explain their thinking and use the opportunity for a rich discussion about how students see similar scenarios differently.

If the students work in pairs or small groups rather than as a class, save some time to review the students' responses as a class.

If time remains, ask the students to generate other situations and consider how their bodies would react. They can challenge other groups to find out the answer to their riddles! Some students will rise to the occasion to engage in this game.

If you'd like for student groups to come up with scenarios and challenge the other groups to decipher which systems are involved, more time may be needed for this activity.

Ask the students to reflect on how the different systems interact in different ways in the riddles and these reaction scenarios. Ask:

How do all these functions add up to a more general service performed for the human body organism?

What happens in our bodies when.....

Imagine you are in the following situations. Turn and talk with a neighbor about how your body's systems work together in each example.

I need to get to my shoes, left behind on the other side of a sizzling, black parking lot on a hot, summer day.

I am on the diving board above the deep end of a swimming pool. I know the water is cold. I jump in.

I bite into
a wedge
of lemon.

I am slicing a potato for dinner when my hand slips,
and the knife goes into my skin.

Cells Teaming Up