cardiovascular system :)

the major components of the cardiovascular system include the heart, blood and the blood vessels.

the heart is an organ that is actually two pumps working together to move blood. it's right pump moves blood collected from the body to the lungs, where oxygen is loaded and carbon dioxide is removed to be exhaled by the lungs while the left pump takes the freshly oxygenated blood and pushes it through the body so tissue cells can be kept healthy.


the blood is a form of connected tissue that has a fluid component called plasma and a variety of cells and substances. it also transports oxygen from the lungs, nutrients and fat cells from the digestive system and hormones from the endocrine glands to approximately 75 million cells in the body. amazing. right? :)



so there are three types of blood vessels. arteries, veins and capillaries.
arteries carry blood away from the heart while the veins carry blood to the heart. and the capillaries allows for the transfer of oxygen and nutrients to the tissues in the body.

whew. this lesson is particularly long and complicated (for me). so in teaching this kind of lesson, its nice to have organizational concept maps to sum up all of the important detail. the reporter did a very good job. :)

ok. that's all.. thank you :))

--angel♥

The Special Senses

So, the senses of sight, sound and equilibrium, taste and smell are what we call the special senses.

The eye is very similar to a camera, with lens cover of the eyelids, opening (pupils), shutter (iris), lens (eye lens) and photoreceptive (retina). The eyes has many parts with different functions but I can't remember all of them anymore. :)



On the other hand, the ear has three major divisions: the external, middle and inner ear. The ear is the organ for hearing and maintaining our sense of balance.

The other senses include taste,smell and touch.

I guess that's all that i can remember right now. :)

Illustrations will help in teaching this lesson so that the parts can be easily remembered. :))

--angel♥

endocrine system :))

Endocrine System...

well..this was the first lesson for the third quarter.

The Endocrine System is often called as the “Body’s Other Control System”. It is a series of organs and glands that secrete hormones into our bloodstream.

So speaking of hormones, hormones are chemical messengers released by the endocrine glands. These hormones bind to receiving cells to control the cell activities. There are three sources of hormone levels, the nervous system (neural control), other hormones (hormonal control) and body fluids (humoral control)

The major Endocrine Organs are the Hypothalamus, Pituitary gland, Thyroid gland, Thymus gland, Pineal gland, Pancreas, Adrenal glands, and the Gonads.
The hypothalamus controls pituitary hormone levels. It also secretes a number of hormones like GHRH, GHIH, CRH and other more.The pituitary gland controls other endocrine organs by releasing different types of hormones.The thyroid gland releases thryroxine and triidothyronine that controls cellular metabolism and calcitonin that decreases blood calcium.Pineal gland releases melatonin which is believed to regulate sleep.The pancreas secretes insulin and glucagon that lowers and raises blood sugar respectively.The adrenal glands produces epinephrine and norepinephrine which is responsible for fight-or-flight response. It also produces adrenocorticisteroids which has many different effects.Finally, the gonads (ovaries in females, testes in males) releases estrogen, progesterone and testosterone that controls sexual reproduction and secondary sexual characteristics.

I was the reporter of this particular lesson and I could say that I did a very horrible report. Waaa! I know that my classmates didn’t understand my report and no one passed on the check-up quiz about it! I felt bad about it so suggest that if you are going to report this lesson, visual aids are really needed since the terms are hard to remember easily.

--angel♥