I teach Food and digestion using Boiled potato, plastic bag, toothpaste and shoe. Hit potato in bag with shoe to demonstrate chewing, talk briefly about peristalsis squeezing a toothpaste tube, add some liquid to the bag to demonstrate gastric juices. Then talk about absorbtion of food before egestion into the bin.
I teach Food and digestion using Boiled potato, plastic bag, toothpaste and shoe. Hit potato in bag with shoe to demonstrate chewing, talk briefly about peristalsis squeezing a toothpaste tube, add some liquid to the bag to demonstrate gastric juices. Then talk about absorbtion of food before egestion into the bin. I had a good lesson with bottom set year 10 - did the digestive system model with bananna, morter and pestle, a bit of ewashing up water, tights, a balloon, HCl and green washing up liquid (bile) as a starter then I put all the scientific names and keywords up on the board (chew, saliva, peristalsis, churning, acids, enzymes, small molecules absorbed etc.) and got them to write a story using all the words from the point of view of the food. We then read them out as a plenary. The kids loved it and wrote some really good imaginative ones. I tried the same thing with the second set but they were really reluctant to do it - 'why can't we just draw it or write or answer questions about it?' Needed to prove digestion muscular so... - Kids lay on desks, heads back over the side of desk so below the level of their bodies - I poured a little water in their mouths - they swallowed - point shown - A few brave souls then volunteered to be held up by me by their ankles whilst another pupil poured a little water in their mouth, and they swallowed it - point really proved