Made in God's Image

made in god's image

Systems of the Human Body Week 14: The Lymphatic/Immune System

Today was my final class for the systems of the human body. I saved the best for last. I had the students come in and begin to review their human body review questions for a game later in the class. I began class with another devotion from Indescribable called "A Miracle? Yep, That's You" This emphasized how truly unique each one of us and how intentional God was at making us. We have purpose and He designed us exquisitely to be able to fulfill that purpose.

With all the fear going around now about COVID, I reassured the students that God made our immune system magnificently with 3 lines of defense. The notes that we covered today proclaimed those excellencies. God is in control!

One of our activities that we played was the Battle of the Immune System. I stumbled upon this game from here

I still need to work out some of the kinks to this as I played it with older kids and two were wounded in battle. The idea was that each person was a different kind of cell that helps protect the body from germs and bacteria. You can see from the picture below that the student with the clipboard is a Memory cell keeping track of the germs that enter the body. The other student with the toy phone is a Helper T cell letting the other cells know that there is an invader. We had B cells that would stick sticky notes to foreign invaders that then the macrophages and killer cells could attack. The cells have to work together in their different jobs to protect the body from getting sick. We played it like a capture the flag game. If the germs captured the flag, the body got sick but if the cells could work together, then the body can remain well. The types of cells that the students were I took from here.

After two casualties, I called it and we began answering review questions in order to collaboratively build the tallest tower possible. I gave the students different sized blocks to work with and they did really well.

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Systems of the Human Body Week 13: The Integumentary System

Our devotion today was from Indescribable and titled A Hairy Situation. I love these devotions as they tell you about the science of hair but also coordinate to where in the Bible God speaks of hair. God mentions that He cares for us so much that He knows how many hairs are on each one of our heads. That's AMAZING!! He knows more about me and my children than I know about myself and them all at the same time!!! He is a Good Good Father!!

During the first week of class, I had all the students take their measurements. I had them record how tall they were from head to toe, how long it was from the tip of one middle finger across their body to the tip of their other middle finger, how big their hand was, their nose, their ear, their foot. I wanted to see how much they would grow in three months. I was most curious about their noses.

So today, we collected the rest of the data. Some students shrank and others grew and many noses grew a little bigger as well. We discussed the different variables that could have happened to skew the data and I emphasized why it was important to collect data the same way each time and to collect as much data as possible.

Since we were studying the hair, skin and nails today, I decided to bring in my microscopes to take a look at some cheek cells, hair, skin, and fingerprints. After we went over our Integumentary System notes we got to work on investigating our skin, hair and nails.

I have a limited amount of time in class and so the students did not get to get samples of their own cheek cells, I just took a sample of mine and made the slide for the microscope. All you need to do is swab the inside of your cheek with a toothpick and then wipe it on a slide. Place some iodine solution on the slide and place a slide cover over it. I placed it under the microscope and found the cheek cells. You were able to see the cell membrane, the nucleus and the cytoplasm.

Next, they looked at a hair under the microscope and drew it on their handout. Then, they wen to my hand lens to see what their skin, fingerprint and nail look like close up. They then drew this on their paper.

Finally, I had them get another look at their fingerprint by placing their finger on an ink pad and stamping their print to a balloon. They were then able to blow up the balloon and it would magnify their fingerprint. They were to discover what kind of print they had, a whorl, arch or loop print. I had them test at least two fingers.

Made in god's image

Systems of the Human Body Week 12: The Respiratory System

"And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being." Genesis 2:7

We began our class time with a devotional from Indescribable called 'Just Breathe'. This was a great devotion introducing us to the importance of our breathing and how it gives life to our cells thus our bodies. It also reminds us that when things get hard and seems hard to breathe, we can trust God to give us the next breathe, for after all, He gave us our first breathe and every breathe since then. And may be Praise the Lord with each breathe we take!

I taught the students using my Respiratory System notes about how this system processes the air we breathe. We went through the names of the anatomy and each parts function as it relates to the whole of the system while still integrating how this also coordinates with the circulatory system from the last two weeks.

We ventured a little into the physics of sound by make shifting some vocal cords using plastic cups and rubberbands. We tested the theory that tighter, thinner cords make higher pitched sounds versus the longer, thicker cords that make lower pitched sounds. Another layer to us being able to make sound is the empty cavities that we have in our chest, head and mouth that allows the sound to be amplified so that others can hear what we are saying or singing. I had a small, medium and large cups to see if we could hear sounds better with the larger cups. It was a nice exploration time for the students.

When we finished making our models of the vocal cords, we moved on to making models of the lungs using our new terminology. I borrowed this activity from here.

Materials:
2-liter bottle with the bottom cut off (chest cavity)
2 bendy straws (bronchi)
2 balloons (lungs)
3 small rubber bands
1 large rubber band
1 small plastic bag ( I used those Twist Tie bags you can buy next to the ziplock bags) (diaphragm)
A small amount of modeling clay

Procedure:
1. Cut off the bottom of the 2 liter bottle
2. Attach balloons to the bendy part of straws with small rubber bands. Make sure that these aren't too tight to block the airway.
3. Tie the straws together using the third small rubber band, again not too tight.
4. Place straws through the neck of the bottle and form a complete seal with the modeling clay.
5. Place the plastic bag on the bottom of the 2 liter bottle. I gathered the excess and twisted then placed my large rubber band over it.

After completing this model, when you push the 'diaphragm' (plastic bag) up through the chest cavity, the balloons 'exhale'. When you pull the 'diaphragm' out, the lungs are inhaling and the balloons inflate.
The students all seemed to be able to accomplish this. There were others who wanted to do other things with the straws and balloons which is totally fine AFTER they first make their lung models. I always want to encourage exploration and discovery.

Also, some of the students had a hard time tying the rubber bands around the straws securing the balloons and so other students who were well trained in the art, were so gracious to extend their help to the other students. In a class with 13 students and 1 teacher, I am wanting those students who grasp concepts and skills quickly to then go and help their fellow classmates. This not only helps the other classmates, but also solidifies the knowledge in those students who grasp concepts easily. In turn, we can move faster during class if they help each other out, rather than each of them waiting for me to come around and help them.

Psalm 150:6
"Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD."

made in God's Image

Systems of the Human Body Week 11: The Blood

"For the life of the flesh is in the blood...." Leviticus 17:11

God has told us this fact in His Word many many years before this was discovered by us scientifically. Blood flows through your body, reaches each cell and provides life, health and healing.

The only way that the Israelites could atone for their sins was by the blood of animals. Praise God that Jesus' shed blood on the cross has covered all of our sins and has given us eternal life.

"For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of the cross." -Colossians 1:19-20

Using this handout, we reviewed how blood flows through our body. We started in the Right Atrium and Ventricle coloring it blue indicating deoxygenated blood. When the students came to an 'x' on their path, they were to switch to red as then the blood became oxygenated by the lungs and was transported back to the Left Atrium and Ventricle to be pumped to the rest of the body. After reaching the tips of the body delivering all the oxygen, it came back to the heart deoxygenated and started the cycle over again.

This handout came from The Body Book (above)

For our notes today, we learned about the four major functions of the blood; Transporter, Protector, Messenger and Thermostat.

I brought in my microscope and a human blood smear prepared slide for them to look at during class. They were able to identify the three parts of the blood; the plasma, the red blood cells and the white blood cells.

For the last minutes of class, we played a short round of jeopardy, reviewing a few of the systems we have learned up until now.

Made in God's Image

Systems of the Human Body Week 10: The Heart of the Matter

Psalm 33:13,15
"The Lord looks down from heaven. He sees every person...He made their hearts. He understands everything they do."
This was the scripture reference I began with as I read The Heart of the Matter devotion from Indescribable.
Our hearts begin beating after 22 days in the womb!
Our hearts beat more than 100,000 times a day!
There are about 60,000 miles of blood vessels within your body that blood flows through!

After taking notes on the circulatory system. I put their circulatory system to work by having each student conduct an experiment on their heart rate.
All of the specifics are in the Beating Heart Experiment Guide in this post. I set up with the Scientific Method as the outline. This framework is helpful for creating science fair projects. Just click on the button and it will take you to that experiment on our Teachers Pay Teachers page.
However, here is the jest of what we did.
1. We found our heart rate either in our wrist or in our neck.
2. For 15 seconds we counted our heart beats
3. We then multiplied this number by 4 to give us our Beats per Minute rate
4. I had all the students stand up and spread out to do jumping jacks or run in place for 3 minutes.
5. At the end of 3 minutes, we took their active heart rate.
6. After resting for 3 more minutes, we took our recovery heart rate.
We wanted to find out if physical activity has an impact on our heart rate.

Here is a video that might help you to be able to conduct this demonstration at home.

Our next activity was a science demonstration of a simple heart pump.
I attempted to have the students conduct this demonstration during class but I had time constraints. The materials for this demonstration are simple and so I encouraged them to reenact this at home. To help them out with this endeavor, I made a video of the demonstration to assist them. Just scroll down. It should be on the left.

The materials needed are:

small jar
2 bendy straws
balloon (have at least three in case of tearing)
scotch tape
toothpick
water
red food coloring
short plastic cup

The procedure:
1. Fill the jar about halfway with water and add a few drops of red food coloring to give it a blood red color. Place the plastic cup next to the jar with the water.
2. Cut the balloon at the neck. Keep the neck part.
3. Place the top of the balloon over the jar as taut as possible.
4. Poke 2 holes gently in the balloon an inch apart with a toothpick.
5. Use the neck piece of your balloon and seal one end of one of the bendy straws. I used scotch tape as it seemed to work better than masking tape.
6. Very carefully push the bendy straw that has a sealed end pointing away from the plastic cup on the other side of the jar.
7. Very carefully push the open ended straw through the hole in the balloon. Make sure there are no holes around the straws. If there are any holes, the demonstration won't work very well as the system will lose air pressure.
8. Make sure to point the open end of the straw not sealed into the plastic cup.
9. Press on the balloon and you should see the red water go up the straw and into the plastic cup which demonstrates how the heart pumps blood to the rest of our body

I found this idea at https://team-cartwright.com/heart-pump-model/

made in God's Image

Systems of the Human Body Week 9: The Excretory and Urinary System

In today's class, we began with a game of jeopardy to review the body systems that we have already covered. We have covered the skeletal system, muscular system, nervous system, endocrine system and the digestive system.

Since we learned about the delightful digestive system last week and essentially learned how poop is made. I thought it only natural to explain next how 'pee' is made. Of course, I did teach the correct terminology of feces and urine. We went over the excretory system and its importance. With that being the overarching system, I then explained the urinary system using the fill-in-the-blank notes that I created using Apologia's Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology. For all the fill-in-the-blank pages I use a combination of resources including Apologia, Answers in Genesis The Human Body and Institute for Creation Research Guide to the Human Body. I have learned so much from these resources which is why I love to share about them.

As our finale today, we used the urinary system experiment guide (left) to explore how kidneys filter waste out of our bloodstream. I approached this experiment using the scientific method.

The human body is an amazing design of the Creator. I am so thankful for these body systems and how they work.

Proclaiming God's Excellencies through Science 2 Peter 1:9-11

Made in God's image

Systems of the Human Body Week 8: The Digestive System

To begin class, I always like to reward the students who were able to complete their homework assignment. So we reviewed their popcorn popping experiment they did at home at the beginning of class today.

As an introduction to the digestive system, I read a devotional from Indescribable called “Rumble, Grumble, Growl. This devotion highlighted the process of digestion in that sometimes our stomachs make very awkward strange noises when digesting. This devotional mentions that our stomach is not the only thing that grumbles sometimes...our mouths can grumble too particularly when we don’t want to do something that needs to be done! Philippians 2:14- “Do everything without grumbling or arguing” Since this is the month of Giving Thanks, we talked about how Giving Thanks is the most powerful weapon again grumbling. You don’t want to do something? Don’t say it! Give thanks for whatever you have and give thanks until you are thankful through and through. We have so much to be thankful for!!!

Next, I walked the students through the process of digestion using our notes. We had some great discussions about acid reflux and what we are tasting when we throw up!

After we learned the process of digestion, they were to take part in an activity that allowed them to be a part of the digestion process using this activity. I put together a bolus first. A bolus is the sticky wet ball that food becomes in your mouth before it goes into the esophagus. The bolus was a trash bag that I filled with torn up pieces of paper. I placed 13 bags of colorful candy in ziploc bags that were hidden inside brown lunch bags covered in lots of pieces of torn up scraps of paper. You can use newspapers but I don’t have any newspapers around so I used just torn up pieces of paper trash that I had lying around my house.

I assigned jobs to each student. I have 13 students in my class so 2 students were Molars, they were to tear open a trash bag bolus full of torn up paper, 2 students were Saliva, they used a small squirt bottle of water to spray saliva onto the bolus after the molars finished tearing the bag. Two students were Pancreatic Juices and they too had a squirt bottle that they used to squirt their juices onto what was moving through the digestive tract. Two students were the small intestine and it was their job to find all the nutrients in the food and give it to the blood. Two students were blood and they took the nutrients (aka ziplock bag with colorful candy) and disperse it to the rest of the body which is the students at their places where they sit in class (to eat later in class). Two students were the large intestine and they were equipped with sponges and paper towels to wipe up any of the water mess that happened during digestion and moved the food along to the rectum where one student took the food and put it in the trash can which would be equivalent to the toilet.

We had been talking a lot of bile being an enzyme that helps our body break down fats that are in our foods. I was able to do a science demonstration to explore how bile does this by using milk, dish soap and food coloring. I poured milk into a container. I placed 3 drops of food coloring in each of the corners. The food coloring did not spread in the milk on it own but stayed it its same corner. Then I dabbed a cotton ball into some dish soap. As soon as the dish soap tough the milk the food coloring backed away from the dish soap. A little later, the dish soap was actually mixing the colors breaking down the fat in the milk.

Made in God's Image

Systems of the Human Body Week 7: The Senses

We warmed up today with a run through of the Jeopardy review questions from the previous body systems.

Next, I opened up our lesson with a devotional from Louie Giglio's book of devotions called Indescribable. The devotion titled “We’re All in this Together” used 1 Corinthians 12:12 and v.18 to emphasize how important each part of the body is and that it does it’s job. The devotion makes mention of the idea of a heart just deciding it was tired of pumping and didn’t want to pump anymore or a nerve cell just deciding not to feel anymore. Life for that person would cease. Even so, encouraging the students that they, too, have a part to play in the Kingdom of God and in their home to obeying their parents and doing the jobs set before them at home to do.

I passed out the notes that we followed and as we came to each sense, we stopped and did an activity/demonstration. The first sense we came to was touch. I had three volunteers from the class come up individually to see if they could feel when they were poked gently by one pencil or two on their fingers or arm blindfolded. The first student who came up proved our statement to be true in that, there are more nerve endings in our hands than there are on our arms. If you try it yourself you will discover this same fact.

The second sense we covered was sight. We discussed the anatomy of the eye and the process by which our eyes gather data to send to our brain which causes us to see. I handed out mirrors for each student and then turned off the light so that their pupils could dilate. Then I turned the light back one so they could see their pupils getting smaller. We learned that the iris is actually the muscle that dilates the pupil to let in the amount of light needed for the environment.

The third sense was hearing. I brought in some tuning forks for the students to practice making some vibrations. I would gently hit the table to cause the tuning fork to vibrate and then hold the tuning fork up to their ears. They could not only hear the sound but also ‘feel’ the vibrations coming from the fork. I had small, medium and large tuning forks. We discussed how each fork had a different pitch.

Another activity we did with hearing was spinning around in circles. We spun and spun and after we were done, we were dizzy. Why were we dizzy? My body stopped, why does it feel like my body is still spinning? We had gone over that there is fluid in the cochlea of our ears and that when we spin, the liquid in our ears spins too. Just like in a cup of water spinning, the water keeps spinning even when I stop spinning it, the fluid in our ears keeps spinning making us ‘feel’ like our bodies are still spinning. I mentioned that this coincides to Newton’s First Law of Motion that everything in motion likes to stay in motion until another force is acted upon it. I have three girls that dance in ballet in my class. They mentioned that when they spot and do turns in their ballet class, that they don’t get as dizzy. This is very interesting! The reason is because they whip their head around so fast that inertia takes effect and does not move the liquid in their ears as fast. Thank goodness or we would have dizzy dancers falling all over the stage!

The fourth sense and fifth sense that we covered was tasting and smelling. I combined these two senses together as the taste receptors and smell receptors work together in our experience of tasting food. I passed around some smell jars to see if they could guess what smells they were smelling. These were very simple to create. Just use some salt and pepper shakers and fill them with the scents you want. I placed a coffee ground one in there to help cleanse their smell receptors after smelling so much.

Lastly, I gave them a popcorn experiment sheet to take home and do together that would review all their senses they learned.

Made in God's Image

Systems of the Human Body Week 6: The Endocrine System

The endocrine system is like the Vice President or second in command to the nervous system. The endocrine and nervous systems work together to get many things done in the body. One of the key differences between the nervous system and the endocrine system is how they communicate with the rest of the body. The nervous system uses neurons to communicate while the endocrine system uses hormones. I made sure to tell them that hormones are chemical messengers sent out from different glands in the body. The key word here is chemical. Next semester we will be learning about what chemicals are in our study of chemistry and then applying that chemistry to our body for the rest of the semester.

Part of the nervous system is the autonomic nervous system. This is where our Fight or Flight response comes from. With Halloween coming up and many people spend a lot of money buying and planning events that revolve around the fear and scare factor, I told them that God has designed our bodies in such an awesome way to protect us from living in fear and anxiety all of our life. We can trust in Him to tell us what is true and we can rely on Him to keep us safe. So the way He provided a way to protect us is through a hormone called epinephrine or adrenaline. This is secreted by your adrenal glands when you are frightened unexpectedly. It gives you the energy to either run or fight or do whatever needs to be done in the situation. This is the hormone that is released when a heroic person pulls a trapped person from a wrecked car stuck on the train tracks. God has designed us this way. Praise Him!

Finally, we continued to review what we have already learned through our review Jeopardy game.

Made in God's Image

Systems of the Human Body Week 5: More than Just Grey Matter

As a review of the skeletal system, I brought in two chicken bones that had been soaking in vinegar and water to observe last week. The one in vinegar became spongy while the one soaking in water was still hard. Vinegar strips the calcium from the bone causing it to be spongy. I reviewed the minerals that our bones need to stay strong; calcium and phosphorus. Without calcium our bones would be spongy. We also played a mini Jeopardy game to review facts that we have learned the last 4 weeks. We went over the skeletal system, joints, muscular system and the first part of our nervous system that we learned last week.

I built on our nervous system notes from last week by introducing parts of the brain and how the brain works through a fill in the blank handout. My goal was to hone in on that what we think is often what we end up doing and so the power of our thoughts and what we are thinking about is important. I emphasized the renewing of your mind so that you may prove what the will of God is from Romans 12:2 but also fixing our thoughts on Jesus will keep our thought life headed in the right direction and therefore our words and actions (Hebrews 12:2)

Next we did some brain exercises by placing some cards with colors written on them. The color written did NOT match the color I wrote the word with. For instance, I place orange with green marker, red with a blue marker and so forth. I had the students read the word. This was easy. But when asked to say the color of the word and not what it said, it took a few more moments because you had to look at the cards a different way, make different neural connections. I also held up some optical illusions and asked what the students could see. Most saw something first but not the same thing. They had to make different neural connections to be able to see the second item in the picture. This was one way to exercise their brain.

I emphasized that them learning about the human body was also exercising their brain but in order for it leave the hippocampus (the part of the brain responsible for short term memory) and be stored long term, they had to review review review and review their notes. This would also help them with Jeopardy.

Finally, we built a model of the brain with modeling clay focusing on the four lobes of the brain. Everyone went home with a logic puzzle to complete for homework.

Made in God's Image

Systems of the Human Body Week 4: Between Two Neurons ...

Isaiah 26:4 You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is fixed on you, because he trusts in You.

We started with groups working to review the bones of the skeletal system as they identified the necessary pieces and reassembled their skeleton.

Do you remember the story where God tells Ezekiel that He will raise the dry bones all around his feet. He will put flesh and breath and life into them just as He would do for Israel.

The students used a fill-in-the-blank notetaking guide to learn more about the two major parts of the Nervous System. We used out new knowledge to work on making models of neurons complete with dendrites and axons.

We put all of our neurons together to make a neural network.

Now it was time to put our neurons to work with the reaction time response investigation. Our hypothesis was that the more times our partner would drop the ruler, our reaction time would increase.

Watch this Nervous System video and take the quiz. If you have time, check out the additional videos on Seeing, Hearing, Smelling, and Tasting. Your child also went home with a What’s my Name worksheet and Nervous System coloring sheet for homework to review the Skeletal and Nervous System.

Made in God's Image

Systems of Human Body Week 3: Muscles, Muscles, Everywhere

Ezekiel 37:6 And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the LORD.

Reviewed our bones and joints from last week. Added Phalanges, Scapula, Mandible, and Hammer, Anvil and Stir Up bones.

Chicken Bone Experiment
We took apart a rotisserie chicken wing bone in search of the cartilage and ligaments that hold the bones together. We learned that ligaments hold bones together while tendons hold muscles to bones.

We placed our knuckles together demonstrating that if there were no cartilage between our bones, then moving our body would be a very painful experience. We were able to find the cartilage in the chicken bones and see that it is a really nice cushion for the bones.

Next we observed a bone that was broken in half. We were able to observe the bone marrow within. The bone marrow was a dark red color and was felt very spongy. We learned that this was where the body makes the red blood cells. There are also white blood cells made in the bone marrow as well. These help our bodies immune system and the white blood cells found in chicken bones are helpful to us when we are sick as it boosts our immunities. There is a reason why chicken soup makes us feel better when we are sick.

Our last observation we will make again next week as we continue to let some chicken bones soak in vinegar and water for another weak to see the effects the vinegar and water have on the bones.

As tempted as I was to have an exercise class to go over the different muscles in our bodies, we stood and pointed out our muscles on our bodies after going through our muscular system notes.

Made in God's Image

Systems of the Human Body Week 2: A Bone to Pick

Who has more bones? A fully-grown adult or a newborn baby?

Before we jumped into the bones of the lesson, we started this week's adventure with a review of the different types of body cells that we have and their functions. Students had fun taking turns swatting their answers with their fly swatter.

“With every bone in my body I will praise Him…” Psalm 35:10

The majority of the science content for this lesson came from Answers in Genesis The Human Body curriculum. We used this Crayola human body worksheet to identify and label the major bones of the body using the appropriate scientific names. No more arm bones and neck bones around here!

To practice using the correct names for each bone, the students broke up into small groups and were challenged to put a model skeleton together in less than five minutes. As they worked on their skeletons, I would encourage the students to use our new scientific names for bones.

Then we learned about the numbers of different types of bones we have, important facts about the important role our bones and skeleton system play in the way we were designed to grow and heal. Students used this fill-in-the-blank handout to take notes.

We closed the lesson with an exit question where the students could connect the scientific names of the bones and our 2D skeleton model with bones from our actual bodies. I would point to a bone in the body and each student would name the bone as their exit ticket from class.

So, does a full-grown adult or a newborn baby have more bones? The bones in a newborn baby's head haven't fused into a complete cranium therefore, the newborn baby wins.

Homework: Put together your small paper skeleton and label the bones we learned in class. Also, read the passage about a special part of your skeletal system called "joints".

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Systems of the Human Body Week 1: More than the Sum of its Parts

Psalm 139:13-14
For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.”

As an introduction to our Made in God’s Image Science class, we went through a quick review of the different body systems that we will be covering in class. I had the students put together a Body Wheel from the Answers In Genesis The Human Body curriculum. This is a comprehensive resource that we will use this semester. I emphasized that even though scientific terms like respiratory system or cardiovascular system were not in the Bible, we have a Creator who knit every part of us together by purposeful design.

Just as Adam was given the privilege of naming each animal, scientists use different classification systems to name parts of large, or complex systems. As they study the physiological processes that help us move oxygen around to the cells of our body or clean our blood system, scientists have created a common language to describe these systems. This is how we have the different systems of the body. It is a way for us to understand the pieces of a larger system so that we can better understand the whole of what God created.

Our opening activity was to look at a loose pile of LEGO bricks. As the students took notice of the different pieces, I asked them if they saw a rocket, car, or elephant. Of course, the bricks were loose and unassembled but one student claimed to see an elephant. Because the best science is able to be replicated, I asked other budding scientists in the classroom if they could confirm the presence of an elephant among the loose bricks. We agreed that there were no elephants in the pile but that the pieces in the pile had the potential to be organized into a model of an elephant or rocket or car. The pieces in the pile had the potential to be used to make something whole, complete, and recognizable. But what would it take to make these pieces something whole and recognizable? It would take a Creator with an intentional plan!!

Then, I uncovered my lovely macaw LEGO creation. I showed them all the wonderful things that it could do. It’s feathers moved on its wings, its wings moved. I can feed it Lego food and it would simulate pooping small Lego pieces. Somebody had a plan to make this macaw and somebody actually put the pieces together to make it. It was intentional and it was wonderful.

We study parts of creation in science always with the worldview that gives God credit for being Creator and creating all things.

I gave the students different sets of LEGO bricks to build different models. Some with directions, some without directions, and some with just a picture to follow. It was definitely easier to put together a Lego build with the directions than it was without directions. Once a pair of students finished their LEGO build, they definitely enjoyed the final model more than its individual pieces sprawled over the table.

I know that God enjoys us, His creation and values us because we were made in His Image, we are image bearers, every single one of us.

The last activity that I had the students participate in was measuring their bodies. How tall they were, how big were their hands, their noses, their ears. Some say that your ears and nose keep growing. Do they? We took a bunch of measurements to see if that is really true and would be able to see a different in 3 months when this class is over. We will keep you posted on this.

Thanks for joining us in discovering the magnificent creation of the human body. Stay tuned next week as we explore the skeletal system.