I have tried other things, like using red and blue balloons to represent oxygen and carbon dioxide, have a pupil sat as lungs, one as heart and one as muscle. Another is the blood and takes balloons to the right places. Made a model of blood using a coffe jar filled with water = plasma, red connect 4 pieces as red blood cells, white painted conkers as white blood cells and gravel as platelets.
I have tried other things, like using red and blue balloons to represent oxygen and carbon dioxide, have a pupil sat as lungs, one as heart and one as muscle. Another is the blood and takes balloons to the right places. Made a model of blood using a coffe jar filled with water = plasma, red connect 4 pieces as red blood cells, white painted conkers as white blood cells and gravel as platelets.
Choose 2 kids for leg muscles, 2 for lungs, 2 for heart, 1 for the brain, + other organs as you wish. Arrange them around the room. 2 are the red blood cells travelling around the body. Lungs have a store of "oxygen" (poly balls or other unbreakable objects) which they supply to the blood as it passes by. Blood then needs pumping, so visits heart. Then to muscles, brain etc. where it hands over oxygen. Then needs pumping again, so back to heart. Then needs oxygen, so off to lungs to replenish supplies. Hopefully the brain can give instructions once you've got it going.
Highly visual demo of blood and what it is made up of... All done in a V.V. lg beaker (1 litre+ ) 1- fill with water and a drop of yellow food dye from a v.lg conical flask (plasma) 2- Add all the red counters from Connect4- they are exactly the right shape! (red blood cells) 3- Add a couple of plasters- waterproof works best (white blood cells) 4- Chuck in a few chunks cut out of a mesh bag like you get oranges in (platelets) Bottom half of Y10 loved it- all could remember the four parts the following week.
Found a great long piece of rubber tubing (25 ft) in a cupboard. Just starting teaching yr 10 the Heart. Unrolled it over the desks, filled it full of water(tee hee), sink at each end. Then got 2 students to bend each end over to seal the ends. Asked the others to feel its pulse. I then stomped on one end at intervals. Plulse travelled quite effectively. Needless to say one student couldn't quite get his end to the sink on time!
Today I was teaching some yr 10s about blood (RBCs, WBCs etc). As a starter I passed round a beaker full of 'year 7 blood', then pulled out my martini glass and started drinking it! ha! They were enthralled! Year 7 blood... 2/3 syrup, 1/3 water, 5 tbsp corn flour, large splash of red food colouring, drop of blue food colouring. Put in blender (or just whisk it together).
place a basket of oxygen (paper molecules) at the end of the room. Mark this 'lungs' draw (in red chalk) the path of the oxygen carrying vessels on the floor: from the lungs to the heart (drawn on the floor) and then to the opposite end of the room where an empty basket marked 'muscle' is located. draw in blue chalk the path from the muscle back to the heart and to the lungs. The students become red blood cells and walk around the vessels transporting the paper oxygen from the lungs to the muscle. Extension: change the pace of the students as they 'flow' around the room... fast coming out of the heart, slow traveling in the veins. Add two students on either side of the vein to act as a valve... preventing blood back flow.