An Interactive Introduction to the Digestive System

We spent some time on the iBooks learning the basics about the digestive system.  The digestive system is the first body system we will be studying this quarter.  A body system is group of organs that work together to perform a specific function.  For example, your mouth and your stomach are both part of the body system called the digestive system.

The interactive lesson introduces us to the idea of different sections of our body, called organs, that have very specialized roles in digestion.  In the simulation, you can send different foods into the body and see how they are broken down into the nutrients we need.

There is a reading in Lesson 3, pages 20-23, which covers the three major types of food: carbohydrates, proteins, and fat.  There are three other major nutrients that our body needs: vitamins, minerals, and water, but we will not be covering those in depth.  There is a podcast for this reading located on the right hand side of the blog if you would like to read along.

Here is a link to the interactive lesson:

Digestion (Flash required)

I handed out a worksheet to help you take notes while you use the interactive lesson and from a lecture I gave to help us skip the reading, but if you missed these, I would recommend that you read the passage on nutrients I mention above (link to the textbook PDF is on the right-hand side of the blog page!), and take notes about the three major types of food.

Then I would take notes on the different things that happen to food as they go through the digestive system.

• Where do they take place?
• What is working to change the food at every step of the way?
• How does our body eventually get what it needs from the food?

We will explore these concepts in much more detail as we move through the unit, but this was a good primer for our upcoming investigations.