Students explore the human body
Intestinal: Dr Bob Irungu explains the workings of the intestines using a very long sausage to students Madeline Jong, Sophie Nicholls, Jamie Chin, Piper Stubbs and Grady Blake.
A group of 17 enthusiastic grade 6 students from Gippsland Grammar School in Bairnsdale recently spent a few hours getting hands-on experience with body parts.
The day was coordinated by Laurea Atkinson, Marnie Connolly, Eleanor Mitchell and Angelo d’Amore with the aim of generating interest in science.
Four stations of body systems were set up: respiratory, the skin, digestive and cardiovascular. Students rotated through the various areas, learning how long the short intestine is, where our food goes, how to look after skin abrasions and how the heart works.
The digestive system station required getting the local butcher to make a 17 foot long sausage/intestine to illustrate the digestive system.
Dr Bob Irungu had the students fascinated explaining the various parts of the body involved in digestion of food.
Dr Bob also provided a body systems quiz with 25 multiple choice questions taken back to school to complete.
Some SRH staff members completed the quiz and decided it had been a long time since they had studied some of the finer details of the body system!
Grade 6 teacher, Prue McNaughton, said students had done very well in the quiz and the success of the day was reflected in a surge of interest in science. Hopefully that interest will last and the students will pursue science into secondary school.
The students presented the organisers with a large thank you card … definitely an activity which will be repeated in the future.