A Dead Body! (lol)

Earlier this morning, the dog starts barking and we look outside to see 2 police cars parked up here at the top of our driveway... parked like they were talking to one another.
Now our driveway is ¼ mile away from the road, and no one ever comes up here.  And I’m wondering if they just needed to talk, they could have parked out at the end of the driveway.  So I'm getting on my shoes to go innocently ask, “Is there anything I can help you with?” when they drive off.
Okay...  so I still know nothing about that.
...........
Then about an hour ago, one of the kids says, "Mama, someone is outside digging!"
And my mind thinks, "a dead body!"  (lol)
So I look outside, and sure enough, there's a man digging next to the driveway.  On the side away from the house, next to the woods.
Then as I'm getting my shoes on, one of the girls tells me another man came out of the woods, and that both men have machetes!  So I tell my six-foot son JohnDavid to get his shoes on  too, because I'm making sure he goes with me.  And I take my cell phone.
Turns out they were surveyors, and some land next to ours is being sold.  They were digging and hacking in the edge of the woods on the opposite side of our driveway, looking for the pin that marked the corners of the two tracts of land that are adjacent to ours.  And of course they needed machetes.  No other way one could get through some parts of these woods!
Turns out my MIL and FIL know the man whose land it is, and I'm sure my hubby does too.
Anyway, I told the men about the "dead body," and they laughed.  =)
Still don't know why the police were here, though...  I should stay alert, hmmm?  =D


sMiLeS,



►Read update here.

Oh, Sleep... How do I love thee?

sMiLeS,

Apologia General Science, Module 15, The Human Lymphatic, Endocrine, and Urinary Systems

►Videos, etc. for M15

The kids did not find this module all that appealing.
I had no interesting games. =(
It was nearing the end of the year, and they all had spring fever.
It was about body systems that, frankly, few teenagers think about.

Some teenagers don't even know what a lymphatic system or an endocrine system is.  They knew about the urinary system, but didn't really care to absorb into their minds the vast knowledge I had to convey.  (lol, about as vast as a pea, haha)


Kidney System
As usual, I went straight to an experiment to try to get them interested, and then previewed other parts of the chapter.  (I usually do things out of order anyway, haha)
You may know that your kidneys are filters.  They clean blood and blood plasma.
But they only clean out chemicals that are not dangerous yet!  They aren't dangerous until they reach certain levels.  So their levels in the blood need to be monitored and maintained.

We did Experiment 15.2, A Model of Kidney Function
Very simple: tea bag, coffee filter, boiling water, you get the idea.

Boiled water poured over loose tea grains (no longer in the tea bag) 

Using a coffee filter in a funnel to strain out the tea grains

The first thing kidneys do to blood is filter out any large chemicals.

Folded paper towel, more filtering.

The water and tea ALL will go through the paper towel, but not all will end up in the glass.

Nephrons filter the water and chemicals in water out of the blood.  Then they put some of 

the water and chemicals back into the blood, and the rest will be sent out the ureter as urine.

Learning the path of blood and urine, etc. is a little complicated, so we spent some time discussing it and learning the terminology.  They listen pretty good since they know there will be questions later... and chocolate!
Not really a game, but they paid attention so they could get chocolatey goodness.  =)



Lymphatic System
In contrast to the kidneys (which clean blood and blood plasma), the lymph nodes clean... lymph!
You have probably had swollen lymph nodes before, but what is lymph?
(That's what the kids said.)

There is a clear fluid that is in between the body's cells, that leaks in and out of capillaries and in and out of cells, carrying out the exchange of oxygen and CO2 between the cells and the blood.
This fluid needs to be cleaned before it can return to the blood, and the lymphatic system does this.
This fluid is called interstitial fluid, but while in the network called the lymphatic system, it is called lymph.
The cleaning sites along the lymphatic system are called lymph nodes.
(See image)

I won't go into it here since you can read about it in your textbook or google it to learn more, but a lymph node has quite a job.



Endocrine System
I'm sure you've heard of hormones.  But what do they do?
Hormones send chemicals to cells, causing them to change their behavior in a specific way.
There are several kinds of endocrine glands.  (see image)
The hypothalamus has several jobs, including controlling the pituitary gland.  The pituitary gland is only the size of a pea, but controls other glands, and is often called the "master endocrine gland."
There is also the thyroid gland which affects the basal metabolic rate.
Adrenal glands, through a complicated series of one thing causing another to happen, are responsible for the production of adrenaline.
The pancreas is a digestive gland and an endocrine gland, and makes insulin.


These body systems are all rather complicated, and I don't know of one that isn't!
I can't imagine how someone can believe in evolution.  We NEED all these body processes to work correctly, and if they don't work correctly at birth, there are immediate problems.
How can someone say we evolved to be how we are today?
We wouldn't even live long enough to bear offspring!
I'm glad I know Who the Creator is!  =)


sMiLeS,

Apologia General Science, Module 14, The Human Respiratory and Circulatory Systems

►Videos and Resources for M14

Breathe!  Just breathe.
Isn't that wonderful?
Without conscious thought (except now you're probably thinking about it), we breathe and exchange carbon dioxide for fresh oxygen every moment of every day for our entire life.
How many breaths do you think you could have in a lifetime?
WikiAnswers says it could be 672,768,000!!!
Time how many breaths you take in one minute and figure it out!

We did this experiment to see how many cups of air our lungs can hold.
Experiment 14.2, The Capacity of Your Lungs

Abigail blowing ALL the air out, and her brother Caleb holding the jug still

Each one had their own length of aquarium tubing (about 2 feet each), and we filled up one jug while another was being blown into.  This helped speed things up a bit.
They filled the sink halfway with water, and filled the jug all the way up and put on the lid, then removed it once the jug was upside down in the water.  Keeping the opening down in the water, and the tubing just inside the jug (needed extra hands for all this, so usually another student held the jug still), they blew and blew and blew to see how much could be blown out with one long breath.
There are 16 cups in a gallon, so we measured what water was left and subtracted from 16.
Caleb and Abigail were able to blow all the air out of the jug, and JohnDavid was able to blow just a bit longer!
Courtney and Bethany blew almost all of it out (within 1/3-1/2 a cup), but Rebekah had a cold and only blew out about 12 cups of air.

Purple lungs!

Experiment 14.3, A Model of Your Lungs
I also made a model of lungs for them to observe.
Which didn't take very long, haha.
(Observe sounds better than look at, lol.  And yep, I do know that isn't even correct grammar.  But around here, we'd never say, "at which to look."  Could you imagine?)  =D
It looks pitiful, but it worked okay, lol.
I blew up the balloon to get it stretched, then when they pulled on the baggie (diaphragm), giving more room for the lungs, the balloon (lungs) inflated.
When you relax your diaphragm, it pushes air out of the lungs.
Yes, relax.
When you breathe out, the diaphragm is relaxed.
When you breathe in and hold it, you will feel more that you are holding a muscle in place.


In our lungs are bronchial tubes that branch and end in tiny sacs called alveoli. (see image, source)
These alveoli are covered with capillaries, like spider webs all along the surface.  These capillaries are the ends of branched out arteries.  They have branched many times, and now have such thin walls that they allow the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide.
They also allow nutrients to get into your system!  Did you ever wonder how the nutrients from food get to the parts of the body where needed?  They travel in the blood!
These capillaries cover the aveoli so that when you breathe in, the red blood cells in the capillaries that cover the aveoli collect the oxygen to carry to all the other cells in the body.  Oxygenated blood flows in arteries away from the heart to all parts of the body.
If blood flows away from the heart, it is traveling in an artery.

As blood cells distribute oxygen to all your cells, they also pick up carbon dioxide that is a waste product.  The blood is now DEoxygenated, and will travel back to the heart and lungs.  When blood flows toward the heart, it is traveling in a vein.
As the blood cells travel past the aveoli, they drop off carbon dioxide, which is then breathed out, and pick up fresh oxygen that has just been breathed in.  This is a constant process as a constant stream of red blood cells travel through the capillaries on the aveoli.  The capillaries are so thin, the blood cells travel through them in single file.

Blood carries gases (oxygen and carbon dioxide), nutrients, and wastes to the parts of the body where they need to go.  But the oxygen and carbon dioxide must be carried by a blood cell.

Kids like games, so after my preview lecture of Module 14, discussions, and lung experiments, we played this until class was over.
(Links to game and instructions, as well as the printable seen in the pic can be found at the Video link at the top of this post.)

Rather than using a spinner to move the playing pieces, I asked questions from the lesson.  If they got it right, their team went 20 spaces.  (I knew this was going to take a long time!)  If they needed a tiny hint, they went 15 spaces.  More of a hint, 10 spaces.  Teammates weren't allowed to give hints, only me.
I gave hints because (1) this was new material, and (2) I wanted them to think a little more, rather than just telling the correct answer because they didn't know it.
They knew questions would be repeated so they paid pretty good attention!
There were red blood cells for the oxygen and carbon dioxide to travel on, but the nutrients and waste products could jump right into the blood stream to travel to their designated spots.
►The first team to get all their oxygen and food to the cells, all the waste to the kidneys, and all the carbon dioxide to the lungs would win the game.

I was keeping individual points (2, 3, or 4 per question) because I knew we wouldn't be finished in time, and it would be hard to figure who won with pieces all over the board, some in their spots, and some partway there.  The team that won got candy, and the high scorer got extra.  =)

They had a really fun time.  I allowed them to look at the notes they had made in class on the backs of their heart model printouts, and I had a few things written on the dry-erase board that I left up.
The purpose of the game was to familiarize them with the direction of blood flow, and that blood cells are what carries various things, and where they go.
The questions further re-enforced other things we were learning in the module.

Close up:
All arteries flow away from the heart.
All veins flow to the heart.
     You can see the path of blood (starting with the deoxygenated blood, returning to the heart):
Vena cava (a vein), right atrium, right ventricle, pulmonary artery (not labeled, purple), lungs (where the dots are; drop off CO2, get more oxygen), pulmonary vein (not labeled, red), left atrium, left ventricle, back to the body through the aorta (an artery).

You can see that just for a moment, deoxygenated blood can travel through an artery when it is traveling away from the heart to the lungs.  Then oxygenated blood travels through a vein when it is traveling from the lungs back to the heart.
These are the exceptions to arteries carrying oxygenated blood, and veins carrying deoxygenated blood.  Arteries and veins are not distinguished by what kind of blood they carry, but whether they are traveling to or from the heart.


Fun, fun! =)

sMiLeS,