What day is it? What week? No ones knows anymore. This just feels like a constant and endless cycle of trying to hunt down assignments in the random places students are trying to turn them in to (even though you specifically said to turn it in to google classroom), 2 weeks after it was due while also trying to explain to juggle the barrage of parent and student emails. Sound familiar enough? Even with all the chaos and struggles of distance learning, I do appreciate the fact that we get to cover material that I wouldn't normally have the time to. This is why I have been focusing so heavily on the human body systems with the kids for the past couple of weeks. The topic is engaging, relevant and provides some activities students and their families and can do at home together. Also, most parents are somewhat familiar with the human body, so if a student wants them to help, they won't be ripping their hair out, compared to a more complex topic, such as let's say, genetics? This week is a fun and familiar body system to cover, the MUSCULAR SYSTEM. Since the kids already have some prior knowledge of this system, I tried to focus on extensions of how the system works and also spiral in some review of cellular respiration and lactic acid fermentation. So here is the breakdown of the activities: #1 Feel the "burn" lab: I do this with my kids when we cover cellular respiration to talk about aerobic respiration vs. anaerobic fermentation and the process of lactic acid fermentation. It is such a good activity and requires no equipment that I thought to bring it back in a condensed version. Students use their hands to feel the lactic acid build up and record data of how long that takes. Students then connect this to previous experiences and makes connections between the muscular system and the respiratory system through cellular respiration. #2: What is the strongest muscle?: Students read the article "What is our strongest muscle?" from NewsELA (you an also adjust reading levels for the article as needed). They then pick one of the muscles mentioned in the article and construct an argument about which is the strongest (there is no wrong answer here, they just need evidence to back it up). There is a spot for students to include links to the websites they used to provide evidence, which is great practice for citing sources. #3 Muscles in Space: Students read a short article put out by NASA on muscle atrophy in space and then watch a video that covers how space exploration affects muscles. Students then predict the effects of space on muscles by drawing the muscles of the lower let of an astronaut that has been in space for 30 days. This also introduces them to some of the muscles found in the leg. Students then describe how muscles are affected by the lack of movement. #4 Interactions with the Nervous System: Students conduct a virtual lab where they explore how muscles stimulated by the nervous system, collect data on how different muscles respond to increased weight and stimuli, and answer guided questions using the data collected as their evidence. If you are interested in purchasing this lesson, you can do so through TpT
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August 2021
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