STEM Anatomy: The Skeletal System

Our STEM Anatomy classes have been working hard and learning many new things. We began our class by learning about the skeletal system.

Without bones to hold us up, our bodies would be like floppy spagetti. Like toilet paper rolls, our bones are not solid all the way through. This makes them lighter so we can walk and run!

How can our bones hold all of our weight if they're not solid? We conducted a demonstration to show that when our bones are standing tall, they can hold more weight than when laying flat on the ground. 

Joints are the places where are bones come together so we can bend and twist! We explored by moving our bodies to determine where we have joints. We sorted pictures of body parts by whether they were joints or not joints. 

We learned that hinge joints can bend and unbend in only one direction, while pivot joints can twist. 

We demonstrated how hinge joints work by taping two blocks together so that they can bend just like a hinge joint! 

We learned that x-rays are pictures of our bones. 

We have LOTS of bones! They are many different sizes and shapes. 

We made bones of different sizes and shapes out of salt dough. 

We went hunting for bones in the sand table. 

We determined where those bones might fit in our bodies - My goodness, that's a lot of phalanges! 

This is our sample spine. Our vertebrae are protecting our spinal cord. Each vertebrae is surrounded by cartilage disks that keep the bones from grinding together. All these small bones in our back give us the ability to bend and twist our backs. 

Our bones give us the ability to stand up tall and joints enable us to bend and grab, but what does our brain do? We'll learn about that in our next post on the Nervous System!