Right now, sitting still, your body is still busy. What jobs do you think it is doing this second?
Hands up one job you can name. We will find out how those jobs are run by teams inside you.
Today's words: organ: a body part with one clear job. body system: a team of organs that share one big job.
Take the heart as our example. The heart's job is to pump blood around the body. Even though it sits in the chest right beside the lungs, we put it with the team that does that pumping job, not with the team it happens to sit next to.
When we sort organs, we sort by the job the team does, not by where the organ sits in the body.
Here are our five teams, with the name a doctor or biologist would use for each one: Breathing, the respiratory system (brings oxygen in); Circulation, the circulatory system (moves blood around); Digestion, the digestive system (breaks down food); Movement, the musculoskeletal system (bones and muscles that move us); and Control, the nervous system (brain and nerves that send messages and control what the body does).
Your group has ten organ cards and five team labels. Stick each team label at the top of its own piece of card or sheet of paper: that is a team mat. Lay the five mats in a row. Take each organ card in turn, say what that organ does for the body, and place it on the mat of the team whose job it helps with. If you disagree, say why before you place it. Do not stick the organ cards down yet.
You do not need a device for this one. The same ten organs you have just sorted at your table are on the board, and we will work through them one at a time.
I will take each organ in turn. Call out the team it belongs to and the job sentence that proves it, and I will drag it onto that team. Then check the board against your own mats: if your group placed a card somewhere else, say which card you would move now and what changed your mind.
When all ten organs are on the board, we press Check. A green card is in the right team. A red card goes back to the room for one more job sentence before we move it.
When your group agrees with the board, stick each organ card onto its team mat.
Sort the organs into body systems
On your Investigation Journal page, make a quick record of the sort we agreed.
Fully label three teams: write the team name, the big job it does, and the organs that belong in it. For the other two teams, write the team name and at least one organ each. Use your sorted cards to help you.
Keep your finished team mats in front of you while you write, so you can check each team.
The body's teams do not work alone: each one needs the others. We will act out what happens inside you when you run in the yard. A ball stands for the job, and it passes from team to team.
How it works:
- Five volunteers stand in a row at the front, in the order below. Each one is a team.
- Control holds the ball. When it is your turn, say your line, then pass the ball to the next team.
- Everyone else watches the ball and listens for what each team hands on.
- The chain is done when the ball reaches Movement.
We are going to follow one job all the way through the body: getting oxygen to your legs while you run in the yard.
- Control: "The brain tells the legs to run, and tells Breathing and the heart to speed up."
- Breathing: "I take in extra oxygen."
- Circulation: "I carry that oxygen in the blood to the muscles, and I am carrying nutrients too."
- Digestion: "I broke the food down before the run, so those nutrients were already in the blood."
- Movement: "My muscles use the oxygen and the nutrients to keep you running."
Break the chain. Now Breathing sits down, and we run it again. When the ball should go to Breathing, nobody is there to take in the oxygen. What happens to Circulation, and then to Movement?
Then pick two teams and say how one needs the other. For example: Movement needs oxygen to keep your legs running, but it cannot get it by itself. Breathing takes the oxygen in and Circulation carries it to the legs, so if Breathing stopped, Movement would stop too.
Today we learnt that organs work in system teams, sorted by the job they share, and that those teams depend on each other.
Think: which two systems would you tell a younger child about, and how do they help each other?
That was a sample lesson from STE for 5th Class
Every lesson in the course is ready to teach like this one. See what else comes with it, and how to order it.
This lesson is copyright of 123Learn.ie 2017 - 2026. Unauthorised use, copying or distribution is not allowed.