Heart Anatomy!

The past few weeks, we have been learning about the cardiovascular system, a.k.a, the heart!  We have looked at multiple diagrams learning the terms of the heart like the right and left atriums, pulmonary valves, and more!
We had a choice to dissect a cow, pig, or sheep heart.  My group decided to dissect the pig heart.

After dissecting the heart we started to identify certain parts of the heart and state differences between the three species. One of the major differences between the three species is the size of the heart. In a cow, the heart is the largest because it needs to pump more blood throughout the cow's body. The pig also has a good sized heart because of the bigger body. The sheep has the smallest heart of the three species because with the smaller frame, it doesn't need to carry as much blood.

To further our knowledge in the heart and how it works, we checked blood pressure, examined each others heart rates with stethoscopes and EKG systems.  After the discussion, we learned a lot from how heart rate fluctuates with what your body is like.  If you are active and athletic, you are more likely to have a faster heart rate and if you are inactive, heart rate isn't as fast. 

While learning about the heart, we also had to label a diagram of the heart consisting of the left and right atriums, left and right ventricles, vena cava, pulmonary veins, and more!  This quiz wasn't as easy as I thought it would be and I didn't do that well.  However, looking back now if I was to take the quiz again I think I'd be able to do better because my knowledge has expanded tons on the subject!

Dissection Time!

A few weeks ago we were to select groups and dissect the brain of a sheep.  My group consisted of Gena, Zerek, and I.  At first we were all pretty disgusted with the topic at hand.  Zerek didn't want to touch it, let alone dissect it.  After we got the necessary tools we had a choose of how to dissect the brain itself.  The three ways were: sagittal, coronal, or transverse.

Sagittal- To cut into two separate pieces.(left and right)

Coronal- To cut in a vertical direction leaving you with a front and back piece of the brain.

Transverse- To cut horizontally which leaves you with a top and bottom

We chose to use the coronal cut to dissect the brain.  However, before dissecting the brain itself, we had to remove the almost clear skin covering the top of the brain.  This film is known as the dura mater.  It protects the brain from getting damaged.  After we got it dissected, Mr. Ludwig came and explained to us some of the parts of the brain, but unfortunately we ran out of time to discuss any thing further.

Here are some pictures of us dissecting the brain (:

Memory!

From an early age, our memory begins forming and putting good and memories into our brain through the hippocampus.  I expand more about what I learned in the glog I created.  The knowledge I put together was very simple, however memory is very complex and has a lot of information to put all in one.