Do you know what the inside of your body looks like? Well, most people don’t. This web site shows your intestines, gives you a virtual tour of them, and even lets you play games with your skeleton! It also shows you exactly how your heart and brain works. So, if you’re ready to know more about the organs that keep you alive, check this site out!

Goals and objectives:

The goals and objectives of the site are to 1) see how the inside of the body looks, 2) understand how the brain and heart work and what they do, and 3) understand why the skeleton is important and what the intestines do.

Further Research:

Taken from WorldBook Online Americas Edition.

People sometimes call the human body a machine—the most wonderful one ever built. Of course, the human body is not a machine. But it can be compared to one in many ways. Like a machine, the body is made up of many parts. Each part of the body, like each part of a machine, does special jobs. But all the parts work together and so make the body or the machine run smoothly. Also like a machine, the body needs energy to work. In such a machine as an automobile, the energy comes from gasoline. In the body, it comes from food or oxygen.

Although the human body can be compared to a machine, it is far more amazing than any machine. It can do things that no machine can do. For example, the body can grow. The body starts out as one cell. In time, this tiny cell develops into a body consisting of trillions of cells. The human body can also replace certain worn-out parts. Each day, several billion cells in the body die and are replaced by cell division. Thus, the body is always rebuilding itself. Every 35 to 45 days, for instance, the human body replaces the outermost layer of skin.

The human body can defend itself against hundreds of diseases. The body can also repair itself after most small injuries. Many body parts, such as the heart and kidneys, work continuously. The heart of a 70-year-old person, for example, has pumped about 55 million gallons (208 million liters) of blood during that person's life. The person's kidneys have also removed wastes from more than 1 million gallons (3.8 million liters) of blood.

By using its senses, the body can detect changes in its surroundings, such as changes in temperature, light, or sounds. It can adjust to these changes quickly. The body's senses are truly incredible. For instance, people can learn to identify thousands of odors, yet smell is one of the least developed senses in human beings. The human body can also detect changes that occur within itself, such as changes in body temperature. The various parts of the body continuously adjust their activities to keep the "inside" environment normal. Such adjustments rely on a system of nerves that carries messages from one part of the body to another. The messages travel at speeds of up to 400 to 425 feet (120 to 130 meters) per second.

The most remarkable part of the human body is the brain. The human brain is so highly developed that it makes people different from all other living things. Their magnificent brain makes people able to think. They can compose silly rhymes or beautiful poetry. They can imagine a dream world or study the mysteries of the atom. No animal—no matter how smart—and no computer—no matter how powerful—can think like a human being.

Lesson Plans and Site Navigation:

1.  Print out the questions and additional activities of this site. In the event that the servers are down, you may access the web site MedTropolis another time, but you will still have the questions. From time to time, the links on a web site do not work. Either skip the question below or the page you’ve been directed to and go on. When navigating a site, you may sometimes want to use your forward and back arrows, or click on the icon (links) buttons.
2. The website for this field trip is http://www.medtropolis.com. On the main page, click on The Virtual Body icon. After the page loads, click the language you prefer (English or Spanish). Then you will see the four different sections of the page you can look at. Click on The Human Brain. The go to the tour, called Narrated Neurons. For this tour, turn up the sound on your computers speakers so you can hear the tour. When the narrator stops speaking, click on the little blue forward button at the bottom right to go the next part. Make sure you pay attention to the tour! At the end of the tour, if you want to do the tour again, there will be a Restart button that you can click. If you would like to move on, on the toolbar at the top, click on The Brain Book.
3. On the menu at the right-hand side, there are six topics (in grey) you can choose. When you click on a topic, read the information underneath the picture, and if there is a “more” button to the right, click it for more information on that topic. There could be 2 or 3 more pages of information.
4. At any time, if you wish to move to another part of the body, there is a toolbar at the bottom you can go to. From the brain, click on Brain Parts. There will be a picture of the brain, and to the right will be a menu in gray of four different angles. Put the mouse over the brain, and to the right of the picture information on that specific part of the brain will come up. On each different view, there are different parts of the brain explained. If you click on the button at the top that says ‘Hide All Parts’, a circle will show up on each part of interest.
5. The next part of the body to go to is The Skeleton. ‘Bones Narrated’ is the virtual tour of the skeleton. As with the last tour, you must click the forward arrow to move on, turn up the volume, and you can restart the tour at the end.  Some of the pages make take a few seconds to load if you have a slower Internet connection.
6. After the tour, click on the ‘Zoom In’ link. On this site, when you click on a part of the big skeleton, that part will come up to the right with labeled parts and their latin names. The next site to go to is “Build a Skeleton”. This is a fun game for children. To start the game, there is a gray link on the left side. When the game starts, the skeleton’s bones will be all over the place. The child must drag all the bones with the mouse to the right place, and when the skeleton is all finished, he will dance and clap for you!
7. The next organ to go to is the heart. Choose the Narrated Tour for an introduction to the heart. As with the other tours, use the forward arrow on the tour and listen to the narrator. When the tour is over, go to The Animated Heart. This is an animated cartoon of the heart in action, showing the two atria and ventricles, and oxygenated blood in red and deoxygenated blood in blue. On the bottom left, you can choose to see the heart pump slowly, normally, or fast.
8. The next stop is Heart Parts. Move the mouse to any part of the heart, and it will show you the name for the part and a description of what it does will come up on the right.
9. Last but certainly not least is the Digestive Tract. The Guided Tour takes you around the parts that make up our digestive tracts, and all the rules for the other tours apply to this one.
10. Go to the ‘Zoom In’ page. In the center, you can choose any part from the mouth down to the large intestine and a detailed explanation, along with names, will appear on the right side. Our last stop is ‘Organize your Organs’. This game is similar to “Build A Skeleton”. Click on ‘start game’, and the organs will fall out of place. When you put all the organs in their correct positions,  the body will move and you’re done!

Scavenger Hunt Questions

Grades K-3:

1. Where is your brain and what does it do?
2. How much does your brain weigh?
3. Why do people get headaches?
4. When does your skeletal system begin to form?
5. How many bones does the human body have?
6. Describe the heart muscle.
7. What does the human digestive system allow the body to do?
8. How long is your alimentary canal? Is it bigger that you are?

Grades 4-8

1. Neurons are nerve cells in our brains that are all connected in a network. How many of them do we have and what do they help us do?
2. What sort of illnesses may result from improperly functioning neurons?
3. What has stopped or hindered humans from learning how exactly the brain works and all it’s complexities?
4. What are the three main functions of the human skeleton?
5. What do you need to have healthy bones?
6. What prevents blood from flowing back into the ventricles?
7. What happens to your food when it gets to your stomach?
8. The human digestive system has one main function. What is it?

 Grades 9-12

1. It is said that the human brain is the most complicated brain on the planet. What does this mean?
2. What do neurotransmitters do and what are they?
3. What are your two nervous systems and what do they consist of?
4. What three types of blood cells does the skeletal system produce, and what does bone calcium do?
5. What do the bones need to promote formation and to strengthen?
6. What happens when blood goes through the pulmonary arteries?
7. What causes you to salivate, and what does salivation do?
8. What do bile salts do?

Additional Activities

• Run a race against your brothers and sisters or your friends. See whose body is the fastest (who wins the race)
• Measure your height with a tape measure
• See if you can count all the bones in your body, or if you know what they are called
• What happens to you when you break a bone? Write a short paragraph about what the doctors in the hospital would do if that happened.
• Rent a video about Anatomy and Physiology from the Public Library.
• Research one of the important systems you learned about today. Give a 2-5 minute presentation on why it is important. What does it do? What would happen if something happened to it? Is it connected to any other body systems?
• Imagine you are a doctor and you work in the hospital. Describe some of the injuries you might see and how you would help those people.
• What do Paramedics and Ambulances do? Write a paragraph on what they do, how they save lives, and what we (the public) can do to help them.
• Do you want to be a Doctor, Paramedic, or Health Care Professional when you grow up? Why or why not?