HeartScience

** The Heart Really Counts. **
//Essential Question//: What is an EKG? What does your blood pressure mean?

This station illustrates the many ways in which students can gather data from a person's body. Technology that isn't normally available to students (such as Blood Pressure monitors and EKG readers) can now be brought into the classroom and students can learn instantly about the human physiology.

The science of the heart and circulatory system can easily be illustrated for students. Students are able to observe the workings of the heart and circulatory system through scientific data representation. The goal is to help students make the connection between real world observations and data representations.

Image from National Institutes of Health: http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/images/heart_interior.gif

Another excellent resource is: []

//Bicycle Gyroscope.// The Bicycle Gyroscope is in this station because aerobic exercise is an important part of keeping the heart healthy. While the bicycle it is a tool to get exercise there is a lot of science behind it. [We know we are stretching it...but it is really cool science.... : ) ]

The STEM team includes the bicycle gyroscope in the Open House because the science behind the gyroscope is an important part of the science behind modern mobile technologies such as iPads, smart phones, and motion sensitive gaming systems (the gyroscope compliments the accelerometer which is used in the Earthquake station). The gyroscope aides the new technologies with determining their orientation. In other words, it helps the technology to be able to be more motion and place specific when performing different functions. Often times with great discoveries it is the merging of ideas from seemingly differing disciplines that make the discoveries unique.

The science here is "gyroscopic inertia" which is based on the principal of "conservation of angular momentum."

One essential question is: What is it that makes a bike stay up?

Experiment with ideas of //procession.// Why does the wheel fall when it is on one axis and not moving? Yet, the wheel balances on one axis when the wheel is spinning? This phenomenon is referred to as procession.

See video from How Stuff works for an example ([]) media type="youtube" key="IEwAry0GARw" height="349" width="425"

Genmove: [] Activities promoting health education ... []