How can you teach students about the digestive system in an interactive way? Unless you’re Ms. Frizzle, it’s hard to take afield tripinside a stomach, but with virtual simulations likeExploreLearning Gizmos, students can get hands-on experiences as they learn about the different internal organs and chemicals that aid in digestion.
What is the digestive system?
From the small intestine to the large intestine and everything in between, thedigestive systemconsists of organs that help a body digest food, absorb nutrients, and eliminate waste.Digestionis the breakdown of food into simpler components.Absorptionis the passage of nutrients and water through the walls of the small and large intestines. The digestive system turns food into energy and nutrients to help the body survive, energize, grow, and repair cells.
Using online labs to introduce the digestive system
Guide students through the process of digestion with the interactiveDigestive System Gizmo. This digestive system lab allows students toengineertheir own working system to demonstrate the process of digestion using large and small organs and various foods (from pecan pie to cheeseburgers!) to discover how the human body breaks down food, absorbs nutrients, and processes waste.
作为学生的进步通过小发明,它们upported with a Student Exploration Sheet that activates background knowledge and guides learning as they experiment with various parts of the digestive system.
Gizmo Lesson Objectives:
- Explore the three functions of the digestive system: digestion, absorption, and elimination.
- Create a model of the human digestive system using available organs and cells.
- Determine the importance of mechanical digestion by the mouth, stomach, and bile.
- Describe the steps of chemical digestion for carbohydrates, proteins, and fats.
- Explain how nutrients are absorbed into the body.
Each Gizmo also includes a teacher guide and vocabulary for easy lesson planning and implementation. All documents are fully customizable (Microsoft Word, Google Doc, and PDF versions) to fit your teaching needs. Assessment questions are included in each Gizmo, so you can quickly monitor and assess learning.
Gizmos allow students to engage withScience and Engineering Practicesin interactive ways. This virtual simulation lets students deeply engage with theengineering design process. In Activity A, students design their own digestive system (engineering skills: define the problem, generate and evaluate multiple solutions, build and test prototypes, and optimize a solution). Students explore mechanical and chemical digestion in Activity B. In Activity C, students determine how different nutrients are absorbed (engineering skills: generate and evaluate multiple solutions, build and test prototypes, and optimize a solution). In Activity D, students apply all of their learning to demonstrate their understanding of the digestive system.
“I love that the Digestive System Gizmo allows students to view and discover how different parts of the digestive system work.”
-Jennifer Cherry, high school science teacher
Other human body simulations
Looking for other Gizmos to help students explore the amazing human body?
Check out these interactive labs.
