Human body- an amazing machinery

Human body is perhaps the best machine nature ever manufactured. It is actually an assemblage of organ systems. These organ systems work in harmony, symbiotically to carry out our day today activities. Our everyday activities, either positive or negative, have mostly a direct effect on our body. Hence learning about our body is necessary not just for the sake of knowledge, but also to keep it heathy. 

BRIDGING THE GAP

Human body form and function of grade 7 is the lesson of interest here. The children were first asked to list out the organs they knew. They listed words like liver, heart which of course would make any teacher happy. But, as the list went on words like cell, mitochondria, chloroplast etc. also appeared. Children struggled about the definition of organs, tissues. The prior knowledge children possess is of cell and its structure from grade 6. The text book had the gap of introducing tissues. Hence the first thing to introduce in class was the tissue, which assemble to make an organ. Then it was an easy sailing for everyone.

THE FABRIC WE ARE BORN WITH….

The topic of discussion was skin. Children were asked to look at their skin in detail and asked them to make a list of what they observed. Children made a list which had hair, dermis, blood vessels, oil, sweat etc. Children often confused the blood vessel with nerves, however this confusion was rectified. The question fired was, is skin an organ? Children looked back with confusion. Some children agreed that it is an organ, others were not sure whether skin is a tissue or an organ.  

A video on skin by science trek was screened. The 3 minutes long video covered areas like sense of touch, the layers of dermis, the blood vessels, set and sebaceous gland, the elastic nature of skin, freckles, tan, complexion, wound healing etc. Children realised that the skin was an organ only after the part of video where different parts of skin was explained like adipose tissue, blood capillaries, nervous tissue. Children now understood that skin is an organ, the largest organ indeed. 

The terms they had listed down, like hair, dermis, touch, oil, sweat etc., helped in eliciting the various function the skin could perform. Finally, children were given a group activity. Children were divided into 4 groups. Charts, colour pencils, crayons, sketch etc. were given and they were asked to draw the functions of skin. Children depicted their understanding beautifully. The drawings included would healing, skin covering body, hair follicles, surface of skin etc. Teaching the lesson in ways that they like, keeps the children very engaged and makes learning fun..

Teacher :
Mahalakshmi, J GHS Mangalam