Planning

27/7/11
Hey Science Lovers,
Today in science we got an assessment on human body systems. In a group we are to teach the class about the body system in a fun and interactive way.
When the groups were getting chosen we were allowed to pick one person to work with, i picked Gabby. Then Gabby and I got paired with Monica and Adriana. We then got allocated a body system which was the Circulatory System.
As a group we started to flick through our text books to see what the Circulatory system was... we found out that it is the heart, arteries, veins and capillaries all combined that transports oxygen, carbon dioxide, digested food, chemicals and heat around the body.
Keep It Science,
Anonymous.

4/8/11
Hey Science Lovers,
Today was the day we worked on our assessment as a group. Firstly we talked about if we were going to do a power-point or not, and we decided we would, after quite a long time i may say... we decided that in the power-point we will have a diagram, pictures, some dot point information about the questions that need to be answered and maybe a video or a game.
With the questions we choice what question each person was going to research.
 I am going to do the following questions

• Why do we need it?
• What parts make up the system?

Monica is answering this question: How does it work?
Gabby is answering this question: Who made the discoveries?
Adriana is answering this question: Future developments
We also said that the answer we have, must be at least one page long and completed at least 3 weeks before the due date of the actual assessment, phew, that's good it gives me lots of time to complete it.

Then we were discussing what the worksheet should include and how the worksheet was going to look. From what we discussed I then made the plan of what was going to be in it. The front page is going to be a 'summary page' with a cloze passage and information/ question activity. The back page is going to be the fun page with a fun activity and a diagram that the student will need to label.
Keep it Science,
Anonymous.


9/8/11

Hey Science Lovers,
Today in class our group are all looking something up. Adriana and Gabby are working as a group trying to find how to make a model, as we thought it would be a good idea to help explain how the system works and what its made up of. Monica is trying to find a video that explains how the system works and Im finding a diagram that the students will be able to lable and also the diagram musnt be too detailed but also not to simple.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eoi0q7f_tRY this is the video that Monica found. We might use this video but as it is 5 minutes long, monica will try to cut the video sorter, but ofcourse only cutting the unrelivent information. 

Near the end of the lesson our group decided that they will come over my place in 2 weeks time to put together the whole presentation together and everything that we need to do, also we decided that instead of Gabby and Adriana making and finding a model, Gabby and Monica will do that and Adriana and I will make the sheets that the students will answer.
Keep It Science,
Anonymous.

18/8/11
Hey science Lovers,
Its been a while iv worked on the science assessment but today we planned alot as a group. Today we decided that we are all going to work on our individual question, as we are going to go to my place next Saturday we need to have all our research done so we can then work on our presentation and our script, etc. Also we discussed how we are going to start the presentation so the intro of our 'lesson' and we thought that we needed someone to say what the circulatory system is, so we then thought Adriana could do that and she also wanted to. (:
Keep it Science,
Anonymous.

24/8/11
Hey Science Lovers,
Today Monica and Gabby were looking for a model of just the heart. We all thought it would be a good idea to make the model out of paper mache and paint the veins on and then straw for the thicker viens. They will make the model when they come over my place while Adriana and I will make the worksheet  and may start the powerpoint.
Keep It Science,
Anonymous.


27/8/11
Hey Science Lovers,
Today everyone came to my house to work on our assessment, we completed our model and worked on our worksheet. The model is made out of paper mache and was then painted red and also blue and red veins were painted on, also we used playdough the form the bigger veins and chambers. Adriana and I made some of the work sheet.We made the cloze passage and also thought of some good questions. 
Keep It Science,
Anonymous. 


30/8/11
Hey Science Lovers, 
AT SCHOOL
Today in class we worked on our assessment, we talked about what we were going to do. To become more organised Adriana wanted to plan our powerpoint, and wright how many slides each question would take. As we wanted to finish our powepoint and start practicing our presentation we are going to book the seminar room in the library on friday and maybe monday. Also tomorrow at lunch we will go to the library to work on it too. 
I'm working on my individual questions too, i have finish my first question which is: Why do we need it. So now i'm working on my second questions: What parts make it up. When i go home I will make the script for the first questions and also try answer more of my question, I also have to find a diagram that relates to the parts of the circulatory, it also has to be able to be labeled. 
Also we said that hopefully by tonight we will all have our questions done and create our individual power point that we will bring together as a group maybe on Wednesday (tomorrow) or Friday.
AT HOME
Today at home i finally finish my questions and found a diagram that can be labeled that also is based on what i talk about :) . 
Keep It science, 
Anonymous.


31/8/11
Hey Science Lovers, 
AT SCHOOL
Today our group met up in the library. We work on our individual question a little and said that by tomorrow we should have our individual power point ready so we can put it together tomorrow. I also gave Adriana my diagram so she can put it on the work sheet and print it out for the class. We choice as a group the style the power point will be (what it would look like) and talked a little about what we are going to put on the power point. 
AT HOME
I have finish my individual power point. It takes up three slides and looks very pretty (: i'm sure my group would like it. 
Keep It Science,
Anonymous. 


1/9/11
Hey Science Lovers, 
Today in class we had a test (may i say i think i did pretty good). After the test which only took around 35 minutes we got to work on our assessment. Unfortunately Adriana was away, but her, the smart one sent Monica her power point by email, so as a group we put together the power point with each of our slides and because we did this in class we didn't need to go to the library at lunch. Our power point turned out to actually be perfect as it doesn't have so many words on it and there are pictures and colours that will get the students attention and also the language used is reasonable for year eights. 


I got today a script of what Gabby is saying on the day the assessment is due. Here it is: 

William Harvey is known to be the man that published the first and most truthful/precise explanation of the circulatory system for the human body. He was known to be very successful and a very enthusiastic student of his time. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Cambridge in 1597.  He then studied medicine at the University of Padua in Italy and in 1602, Harvey received his doctorate.

William Harvey returned to England after receiving his doctorate so that he could put his medical studies to practice. And he married the daughter of the court doctor to Queen Elizabeth the first and King James the first. Through this connection, Harvey himself eventually became court physician. And during the period of time that he was the court physician, he was able to gradually conduct research on human biology and physiology. But through all his research, he focused mainly on how the blood actually flows through the body.

During William’s time, many scientists before Harvey believed that the liver was responsible for pumping the blood through the body and was responsible for the production of body’s blood supply. But William thought otherwise and this caused him to dedicate himself to life-long scientific investigations based on his research. And it was not until William Harvey’s theory that other scientists began to question this.

Through his research and findings, it can be seen that William believed that the heart played a very important role in the circulation of the blood. He conducted experiments on animals to support his hypotheses which included dissecting and observing their hearts. From dissecting the hearts, Harvey observed that the heart valves only allowed the blood to flow in one direction. He also removed the beating heart of an animal for observation and it still continued to beat – from this it can be seen that the heart still pumps and is not a sucking organ.

His research also shows that he found that the blood enters through the right side of the heart and then is moved or forced to the lungs prior to returning to the left side of the heart. His observations of the heartbeat of living animals challenged Galen’s theory of the blood being forced from one ventricle to the other because Harvey’s findings showed that the ventricles actually contracted together.  

Its kind of long but no worries because Ms Simpson said it was alright if we go over time and even if we do we wont loose marks. (Only if went under time we wont loose marks). 

Also here is a script of what i will say (its not as long as gabby's).

1st question script: 

Probably one of the most popular questions that come to mind is; why do we need it… well our circulatory system helps regulate our body temperature. When you are hot your capillaries, which are like blood vessels grow wider to allow more blood near the surface of your skin, then allows body heat to escape. This is why when you’re hot your face becomes red. So knowing this do you think you would know what would happen when you’re cold? Pretty much the complete opposite.   

The circulatory system brings the body's cells what they need to survive like oxygen and nutrients. The center of the circulatory, is the heart, a powerful pump organ designed to beat many millions of times. We need the circulatory system because without that we would have no blood in our body. We would not get the nutrients we need and we would not be living without the heart.

Second Question script: 

The circulatory System is divided into three major parts:

1.     The Heart

2.     The Blood

3.     The Blood Vessels

This is and 3D model of just heart, here you can see the main Artery *point* also called the Aorta. Here is the Superior Vena Cava *point* which leads the the right Atrium and the left Atrium *point* which is inside the heart.

This ‘pipe’ is called the Pulmonary Artery which leads to the Left Ventricle and the right Ventricle which are inside the heart. These two ‘pipes’ are called the Pulmonary Veins. 

On Monday i hope to get Adriana's script and Monica's too. First Adriana is going to say her introduction of what the system is, then i am going to explain why we need it and what parts make it up. Then Monica will go into detail of what each part does and then Gabby will explain who discovered the system then last Adriana again will talk about some future developments.

Keep It Science, 
Anonymous. 


5/9/11
Hey Science Lovers,
Today in class we had another research lesson, so as we have pretty much completed everything we made sure that the power point was working... but something went wrong, Gabby's pictures for her slides wont showing... but no worries she fixed it in the end, and now for sure they wont and the power point is complete.
I also got the script of what Monica and Adriana will be saying on the day the assessment is due.  Here is Adriana's script: 

Does anybody here know what the circulatory system is basically about?

------------Choose someone to ask-----------------

Good, well we are going to talk about it in further detail.

So now we know about the past discoveries, but what about the future? With new information usually forming from old discoveries, researchers have found further solutions to illnesses, injuries and improving health.                                                                                                                                                                                       A new study has found that the heart of a newborn mouse can heal itself completely, even when part of it has been removed.                                                                                                                                                              When a mouse’s heart is less than a week old, the cells contract to make the heart pump blood, which are called cardiomyocytes, are able to divide, so they can regenerate heart tissue. A week after birth, the cardiomyocytes lose this ability.                                                                                                                                                    The discovery is promising for the development of future heart treatments. If researchers can learn why newborn hearts have this ability to regrow tissue, they might be able to apply that knowledge to damaged adult hearts, such as those of people who've suffered a heart attack.                                                                                           Blood substitutes could help the blood transfusion services to ease their two biggest headaches: annual shortages and the safety of donated blood. The big attraction is that it would cut down the time and money we spend on testing for infectious diseases and checking for blood type.                                                                                  Stroke, also known as a brain attack, occurs when blood flow to the brain is disrupted. Stroke may cause impairments in movement, speech, thinking and memory. Although there is no cure for stroke, advanced medical and surgical treatments are being improved and tested, giving many stroke victims hope for an optimal recovery.                                                                                                                               Researchers have discovered that a protein found in the walls of blood vessels plays a key role in maintaining healthy blood pressure, a discovery that could one day lead to new treatments for people with high blood pressure.                                                                                                                                                       We have to be able to change our blood pressure at the drop of a hat -- quite literally! If you dropped your hat and bent over to pick it up, your body would automatically reduce your blood pressure to account for the position of your head relative to your heart and the effect of gravity and then when you stood up again, your body would.                                                                                                                                         The muscles in the walls of your blood vessels play a role in adjusting blood pressure and if they need to increase it, they squeeze the blood vessels more tightly to literally put mechanical pressure on your blood.                                                                                                                                                                            Researchers hope that by understanding the key role they play in maintaining healthy blood pressure we can use this knowledge to develop new strategies for adjusting blood pressure using drug treatments in the future.

This is Monica's script:

From what we have already explained before, the main function of the circulatory system is to pump blood along with nutrients and oxygen all around the body with every heartbeat. And a heart usually beats 60 to 100 times per minute, meaning that in a year, our heart beats around more than 30 million times, pumping the adequate amount of blood needed for our body.  Of course, the centre of the circulatory system is the heart and what the system depends on and revolves around. So as this is the pump organ in the system, this is where the whole process of ‘blood flow’ or circulation begins.

First of all, you all need to know that the heart is split up into four chambers; the right atrium and ventricle and the left atrium and ventricle. Both right and left halves of a heart has two different jobs to carry out. The right half of your heart, receives the blood with no oxygen left in it or the ‘poor blood’,  and then lets it flow through the pulmonary artery from the heart into the lungs, letting it discard carbon dioxide and receive oxygen. This is called the pulmonary circulation which is; when blood travels through the lungs and back to the heart.
On the other hand, the left half of the heart actually receives the blood WITH oxygen and simply distributes it and generates force to propel blood through the rest of the body, coming back again to the heart to re-cleanse the blood. This is called the systemic circulation.

Now moving on to the actual detailed circulation of blood! Here is a flow diagram that will help you all understand the process and how it should work properly if the individual is healthy. As you can see, the very beginning of the circulatory flow starts at the right atrium and then passes through the right ventricle and up the pulmonary artery and into the lungs, still distributing blood, nutrients and oxygen. After that, the blood then travels out the aorta and into a series of even smaller vessels called the arterioles, where the blood’s pressure may actually differ as some segments may be different in size. Then, the blood simply flows easily through the capillaries in our body, supplying itself with more oxygen and may then be replaced by some waste products. Finally, the blood then travels through our body’s veins and returns it back into the heart where it can be refreshed. Then the whole circulation is repeated again and again. And that is basically how the circulatory system works.

Keep It Science, 

Anonymous. 


6/9/11
Hey Science Lovers,
Today was our last research lesson. In this lesson we decided to run through our whole presentation. So we went into this small room and practiced. We started to change things in each of our scripts, each of us added little things such as some quick questions we would as during out own individual speech. Also we timed our whole presentation, it was around 14 minutes, i guess that's fine as for miss said it was okay if we went over time and we wouldn't loose any marks. Also we decided that at the end when each of us has finished our individual questions we would ask the class if they have any questions and then if they do we would answer them and that would be the real end of our presentation. 
Well... this is my last blog to you guys... don't miss me and wish me luck for tomorrow (the assessment is due) all should go well (: x
Keep it Science,
Anonymous.