Body Systems: Cardiovascular System: Race Your Heart

 Can you move water as quickly as your heart can move blood? 

After this activity, you'll have a deeper appreciation for the work your heart does, every minute of every day for your entire life.

The heart pumps out 2 oz. (1/4 cup) of blood per contraction.  Cut some small paper/plastic cups down to hold 2 oz of water.  (Dixie cups hold 3 oz. - fill one with 1/4 cup of water, mark the water line and cut).

Place two containers/tubs next to each other, on top of towels or newspapers.  Fill one container 3/4 full of water.  

(This would be a good candidate for an outside activity, but in my part of the world, February is not the time to go outside and play in the water, so just be prepared with newspapers, towels and maybe a mop, just in case).

Practice using the cut-down cup to transfer water from one container to the second.  After you've practiced, return all the water to the original container.

When your partner/the teacher says to begin, use the cup to transfer water from one container to the second as quickly as you can.  Count the number of cup-fulls you transfer.  Your partner/the teacher will tell you to stop after one minute.

How many transfers did you make?  Did you come close to 80?  That's how many times your heart moved 2 oz. of blood during that minute. 

Try again and try to go even faster this time.  See if you can come close to matching your heart.

Body Systems: Cardiovascular System: Beat Your Heart

How much work does your heart really do?  The numbers are quite staggering... figure them out for yourself.


Part I: How many heartbeats in your lifetime?
Determine your pulse: count the number of beats in 15 seconds.

Multiply by 4 to get the number of beats her minute.  (Average is between 70 and 90).

Now, use that number to determine how many times your heart will beat, assuming an average lifespan of 78 years.


Part II: How Much Blood?
1/4 cup (2 oz.) of blood is pumped per contraction.  Using the number of beats per minute you calculated above, determine how much blood is pumped in one minute.  (Average is 20 cups = 5 quarts).

How many quarts of blood are pumped in a day?

How many gallons are pumped in a day?

Remember: 4 cups = 1 quart; 4 quarts = 1 gallon



Part III: How Much Does Your Blood Weigh?
About 10% of your weight is blood.

How many pounds of blood are in your body?

A Theme Week: Valentine's Day

I'm going to try my hand at a theme week...

Next week is Valentine's Day, a rather minor holiday in the grand scheme of things, but it tends to involve hearts, lots of hearts.

Just for fun, each day this week I'm going to share a science activity related to the heart (and by extension, the cardiovascular system).  I hope you'll find something you can use in this week leading up to Valentine's Day or next Monday, on the big day itself.  Many of the activities are very simple and require little set-up.

So, without further delay, here comes the first heart activity....
(And I promise to return to typing in black - I was momentarily overcome with Valentine's spirit).

Website: Educational Innovations

Educational Innovations has a great catalog of science toys, supplies, novelties and activities.  It reminds me a bit of Steve Spangler Science.  (That said, I don't know which company came first, or even, which one I knew or first.  Nor do I know how they feel about one another.  I like them both.  'Nuf said.)

I've purchased from them in person, while at the New Jersey Science Convention. 

I'm particularly fond of some of the fun items that add some whimsy to my classroom:

The Einstein Action Figure

 Some of the products that have a greater educational purpose include:

The Mirage

Boomwackers


And of course, there are the basics, like lenses, magnets, spring scales, etc.

There's a whole lot there - you'll want to spend some time exploring.

Chromatography: Which is Which?

 Pictured above are 2 M&Ms and 2 Reese's Pieces.  Can you tell which are which?

Do you think the brown dye used to coat them is identical?  It certainly looks like it, but you can use science to determine the difference. 

We'll be using chromatography again, separating the dyes found in each candy coating. 

To begin, cut your filter paper/coffee filter into two strips, about an inch wide.  Label one with an M (for M&Ms) and the other with an R (for Reese's Pieces).

Dip part of a brown M&M into water.  Use the wet portion to draw a line on the appropriate filter paper, about an inch from the bottom.  You'll want to go over the line several times, to make it as dark as possible.

Repeat the above steps with a brown Reese's Pieces and the other piece of filter paper. 

Set up your filter papers so the very end is in water (make sure the line is above the water level).  I used pencils to suspend my filter papers in tall drinking glasses.

Wait and watch.  After sufficient time has passed for the water to move a few inches up the paper (could be as long as half an hour depending upon the paper you use), remove the papers from the water and lay them flat to dry. 

Place the filter paper on a sheet of white paper for the best viewing and observe the differences between the two candies:

The colors are so faint, it is difficult to capture them in a photograph. 



Reese's Pieces



M&M



The Reese's Pieces is largely red with a faint blue line. 

The M&M shows a lot of orange, a little red, and a very faint line of green.

Adaptations: Bird Beaks - Version 1

Over the years, I have encountered several different variations of this activities.  I think they all have merits, so look for me to share a few other versions in coming weeks.

 

This first version is the simplest, and the most appropriate for younger students.

 

Create a bucket of "bird food".  Into this bucket, dump all kinds of things - try to include a wide variety of shapes sizes and textures.  Some things you might want to include:

 

• Sand
• Oats
• Rice
• Marshmallows
• Gummy Worms
• Cereal
• Pasta
• Coconut
• Small candies

 

 

 

Then provide each student with a beak tool.  Look around your house for ideas:

• Tongs
• Chopsticks
• Eye droppers
• Forks
• Pliers
• Tweezers
• Toothpicks
• Clothespins

 

 

 

 

 

Let the students go at the bucket of food with their respective beaks.  They should try to gather as much food as they can. 

 

After a set amount of time has passed, spend some time looking around to see which beaks were able to pick up which foods. 

 

Ask your students why the eye dropper beak wasn't able to pick up the oatmeal, and why the tongs weren't able to pick up the sand.

 

There are several nice worksheets out there to use as a follow-up to this activity.  You can find two here and here. 

Weather: How Much Water is in Snow?

If you're finding yourself with an abundance of snow.... ahem.... perhaps you'll want to perform some investigations. 

The amount of water snow contains can very greatly, depending upon the snow. 

Gather a set amount of snow... I collected approximately 500 ml of snow.

Allow the snow to melt - if you'll be allowing it to sit for an extended time, you may wish to cover it to minimize the amount lost to evaporation. 

My 500 ml of snow yielded slightly less than 50 ml of water.  This was a very dry, powdery snow. 


If you live in a place that gets snow throughout the winter, you might want to repeat this activity with each snowfall and see how they vary in water content.

You may also want to measure the pH of the snow water.