What We Know and What We Want to Know

 Much of our unit time this week was spent on completing the pre-assessment activity of getting the students to show what they already know about what is inside their bodies and how it works. There were several interesting questions and comments that came up as I listened in on partners' conversations. 

"Do you know what a ribcage looks like?"

"Food will バラバラand go somewhere else!"

"Blood carries messages from the brain to other parts."

On Thursday, each group had the opportunity to explain to the rest of us what they had included in their body diagrams and why. All groups demonstrated a good amount of prior knowledge about some of the organs, body systems and some of their functions.

"The brain is protected by the skull." - Simran

"The heart is like a post office, the blood vessels carry blood around the body to every organ." - Hiro

"There are 206 bones, sorry we couldn't draw them all." - Yeonjae

"The lungs will turn black if you smoke and you could get cancer." - Rintaro

"In the tummy are the 小腸 and 大腸." (small and large intestine) - Kanna

"The stomach makes the food into little pieces, and dangerous water inside makes things melt and it connects to the intestines." - Aruto

"The lungs and heart are つながっている." (connected) - Lucas

"The big and small intestines are part of the digestive system." - Yoshika

"Food goes here (胃/stomach) then to 小腸 and 大腸. Things that the body doesn't need come out." - Stella

The students also had a number of interesting misconceptions.

"The red lines show blood, and blue lines are water."

"Inside the heart there is red part and blue part, inside is airline and water line."

"Blood goes to toes, to stand up and 力がはいる (they get power)."

Over the next few weeks, we will be working on correcting some of these misconceptions and will be learning more about the different body systems. Today they were able to identify 6 of the 11 body systems either by name, such as the digestive, muscular and skeletal systems, or by their function - breathing system, heart and blood system. They will be learning the proper names to these systems as well as the names and functions of various organs and hopefully all of the answers to their Wonder Wall questions in the coming weeks.