Brain Jello

 

Every year we try to do something fun for our Human Body Labs.  This year I made a jello brain and raffled it off.  Students had to identify some of the functions of the various parts of the brain. 

                                It looks and feels just like you would expect a brain to be. 
                                                                 Kind of creepy...

  

                                                                 This student loved it!

I ordered the mold from Amazon

It's really very simple to make. 
All you need is some kind of spray oil
carnation fat free milkblack food coloring
watermelon jello
hot water, ice water, and a little bit of time to let it set. 

                                                   This is my grandson
                            
                                He gets a "brain cake" every year on his birthday. 
                            Some traditions should die but they're just too fun to quit!

The Brain

Our daughter earned the distinguished nickname "The Brain" when she was little. That was because she loved science and loved to tell everyone everything she knew. When we lived in Washington DC and would visit the Museum of Natural History she turned into a self proclaimed tour guide and proceeded to give tours to unsuspecting visitors. So... I dedicate this post to her, my brain. :)

Upon embarking on the study of the brain, I came upon a brain mold and thought it would be a good idea to have the students point to the part of the brain and tell me what is it's function before they would be allowed to "dig in" and eat it.
What an adventure! We all learned so much about our brains and it tasted so good. (note to self, don't forget to add sugar to the Knox unflavored gelatin). I was a little concerned that perhaps this teaching object lesson had gone over the edge and that someone would turn me in for child abuse. But, my daughter (the brain) encouraged me to go for it, so I did. Some students even thought they would increase their balance by eating the cerebellum, or improve their eyesight by eating the occipital lobe! I can just imagine how the dinner conversation went that night...

I'm haunted by all I learned about our marvelous brains, so much so that in church I couldn't take my eyes off the bald man sitting close by. I could actually identify the plates on his skull covering the frontal, parietal, and temporal lobes. Now how can you concentrate on the message when you have such an interesting head to look at??? If you want to know more about your brain's health I would suggest you click here.

Focus on the Eye

What does this picture have to do with our human body lab? Absolutely NOTHING but this is what we do before lab begins. We get the critters (guinea pig, hedgehog, chinchillas, bearded dragon, Buddy Bird) out and we play.This is a strange behavior that the hedgehog does. After having contact with a human or other animal he foams at the mouth and spreads the foam over his body. This behavior is called "self anointing" and scientists aren't quite sure exactly why they do it. Hedgehogs are very weird animals.
I didn't take a lot of pictures during the lab because I was working so hard that there was vary little time to get in a few shots. Somehow I found the time to take a picture of my grandson Peter as we performed the lung capacity test.We took hair samples for the fingerprint/DNA chart. This is Nathan's hair. He has a patch of gray and wanted to see what it looked like under magnification. Peter enjoyed taking this body apart and putting it back together.

We built cameras to illustrate what happens when an image comes into the eye.
Images come into the eye and are flipped upside down and reversed, just like a camera. The occipital lobe in the back of our brains take the image and correct it. The tissue box camera's we made illustrated this fact.

Pass the Pig

We planted Kale, Lettuce, and Collard greens in September. Now the plants are big enough to pick. Sammy and Spikey love fresh greens and I told the children that they can go there and pick vegetables for them anytime they like.

It took some serious patience to teach the children not to pull up the plants by their roots. Let's just say the plants are somewhat traumatized but not totally dead. Plants are very forgiving. Maybe we can learn that from them.I'm not sure who ate more vegetables, Sammy or the students... Nothing like home grown vegetables. You can't overfeed a pig which is a good thing when you have a bunch of excited students wanting to serve the vegetables they grew to their furry friend. Next, the students got to play doctor with the stethescopes and listen for Sammy's heartbeat . It's a good thing Sammy thinks he's a person. He took it all in stride like I knew he would. He loves children and he loves to eat. Sammy and I have a lot in common...

What a guy that Sammy...

Salmonella is Not Your Friend

I did a bad thing. I exposed my students to the dreaded Salmonella bacteria. Not really. Ha ha fooled you! I found the neatest thing on the Steve Spangler website. It's "Salmonella in a bottle". Really, it's a substance that you put on the hands which has glow-in-the-dark properties. Students are asked to rub it all over their fingers and under their nails then, go try to wash it off.
I showed them this cute furry creature that resembles the bacteria so they wouldn't get scared.
This is what the real villain looks like.
Not so fun when its propogating inside your intestines. After the children washed their hands we turned the lights off and examined their hands with this handy little black light.

The moment of truth arrived...

Just keepin it real...For more information about handwashing go to the CDC website on handwashing: Click Here

I Am Amazing

I knew this would get your attention!! Don't worry. I am not bragging about myself. This is about the December Human Body Lab. Children are often told that they are unique, special, and that they are an amazing creation from God. We are "fearfully and wonderfully made". In this lab students actually got to see how incredible their body really is. They were surprised when they found out how "cool" and unique their fingers are and they didn't even realize it until now.

There are basically three types of fingerprints. Here is how we found ours. I know you can buy fancy fingerprint kits but I prefer to use materials found at home. That way kids don't think they have nothing to do unless we take them to the store to buy something.
We wrote our names on a 3X5 and made a mess on the card with a pencil. Some of the children really got carried away with this part.
Let's just say it took a while to clean the table after the lab... On the back of the 3X5 we wrote RT for right thumb, RM for right middle, and RP for right pinkie. We then took these fingers and got them really dirty with the pencil scribble scrabble. Some of the children dove into this task with gusto but others were afraid that their mothers would get mad at them for getting dirty. Just to let you know where I stand on this issue:

CHILDREN LEARN BETTER WHEN THEY GET DIRTY!

We lifted the prints off the dirty fingers with clear tape.
Then, we stuck the tape on the back of the 3X5 cards and examined them with a magnifying lens.
Here are some interesting prints we took. Nathan, my trusty lab assistant and youngest son, placed them under the microscope so we could get a better look.

The children were really captivated by their own uniqueness. Here is a good chart to help you identify the prints if you choose to do this at home. Next year I am going to give all the students this identification form. It is the best I've found for children and would be good to have in a file somewhere.
You can download it here:
fingerprints

Now, when your child is bored at home just tell him to take his fingerprints!Or why not toes???