Name___________________________________
SYSTEM INTERACTIONS AND HOMEOSTASIS
Working Together – The Interaction of the Body’s Organ Systems
Objective: Create a model of the interactions of the organ systems in the human body.
What is a model?
Simplified representation of a system.
Allows us to make predictions using your model.
Models should always be used to help explain and show the relationships with a real-world
phenomenon.
 Structural, behavioral or functional.
 Diagram
 Analogy
 Simulation
 Key
Modeling Examples:
Name___________________________________
Ben’s Bad Day
Introduction: The human body is composed of the eleven principal organ systems listed below.
These systems do not work in isolation. They work together to perform as a single organism and each
system interacts with the others to maintain homeostasis and functionality throughout the body.
integumentary
nervous
lymphatic/immune
digestive
skeletal
endocrine
respiratory
urinary/excretory
muscular
reproductive
cardiovascular/circulatory
Meet Ben, a junior at UMBC. Ben is sleeping soundly right now in his bed. Ben will need
his sleep because he is about to have a BAD day! His body will experience many challenges.
How does his body maintain homeostasis?
Your task:
1. Determine which systems of the body will be involved in each situation
to bring Ben’s body back to normal (homeostasis). Use your systems of
the body notes and use organs, tissues, and cells to explain your choices.
2. Create a model of 2 or more systems interacting to meet one of the
challenges below. Remember models can be used to make predictions...what would
happen if one of your systems stopped working?
Challenge I:
Ben woke up starving, he eats a HUGE breakfast. Blood vessels will widen to transport more blood to carry the
food which will be broken down. The heart responds by pumping more blood. Impulses are sent to the brain,
notifying it of the increased digestive enzymes and hormones (ex: pancreas produces insulin, which controls the
use of sugar). Ben is full, the brain responds by perceiving less hunger, more fullness, and less interest in
vigorous physical activity, which preserves more blood to be used for digestion instead of by skeletal muscles.
You must find a minimum of 2 organ systems that are involved. You can include more for extra credit.
Keywords that indicated to you
What does this system do in this scenario? /
Organ System Involved
that this system was involved
How is it involved as part of the feedback?
Extra Credit:
Extra Credit:
Organs involved: ___________________________________________________________________________
Cells involved: _____________________________________________________________________________
Name___________________________________
Challenge II:
Ben falls asleep after that huge meal. An angry
student is annoyed by Ben’s loud snoring and kicks
Ben’s chair to wake him. Ben jumps out of the chair
and feels dizzy and faint. (Ben feels faint because his
blood pressure dropped suddenly when he jumped).
Organ System
Involved
What does this system do in this
scenario? / How is it involved as
part of the feedback?
For this scenario, HIGHLIGHT or CIRCLE
Keywords on the diagram that indicated to you
that each system was involved
Organs involved: ___________________________________________________________________________
Cells involved: _____________________________________________________________________________
Challenge III:
Someone stole Ben’s leather jacket while he was sleeping, now he has to cross campus to Chemistry class with
no jacket…its 15F outside! (Bens body temperature is dropping, help maintain it and save him from
hypothermia). Refer to your notes on homeostasis in the body to explain how each of these systems would help
him stay warm longer.
How this helps increase temp. (you
Organ System Involved
What it does to increase body temp.
might have to look this up)
Nervous
Circulatory (and
Integumentary)
Muscular
Organs involved: ___________________________________________________________________________
Cells involved: ____________________________________________________________________________
Name___________________________________
Challenge VI: The wind blows and whips Ben’s history paper out of his hand…it gets stuck on a bumper of a
bus. Ben chases the bus, he gets the paper but he feels like he is going to die. (During his ½ mile sprint, Ben’s
muscles produced lactic acid due to the lack of oxygen, which lowered his pH of his blood)
Which 2 systems probably worked harder while he was running to get oxygen to his muscles?
Organ System Involved
What it did to help him get oxygen to the muscles.
Organs involved: ___________________________________________________________________________
Cells involved: _____________________________________________________________________________
Extra credit: Which system(s) might now be involved in removing the lactic acid from the muscle afterwards so
that the muscle can heal? Explain why you chose this system.
Challenge V: Ben did not have a lick of water all day, he is so dehydrated. His brain notices this and its pituitary gland
releases a hormone called ADH. ADH does two things – makes him feel thirsty, and tells his kidneys to conserve water.
His kidneys stop absorbing water from the blood and they excrete a very concentrated urine.
Organ System Involved
Keywords that indicated to you
that this system was involved
What does this system do in this scenario? /
How is it involved as part of the feedback?
Organs involved: ___________________________________________________________________________
Cells involved: _____________________________________________________________________________
Challenge VI:
Create your own scenario that Ben will face:
Systems involved:___________________________________________________________________________
Organs involved: ___________________________________________________________________________
Cells involved: _____________________________________________________________________________
Name___________________________________
Body System Pair Model
Which Challenge from Ben’s Bad Day are you modeling? ___________
Which 2 systems will you focus on most? (You are welcome to include additional systems too?
_____________________________ System and ___________________________ System
Create one or more models to show how the 2 systems support each other and interact to maintain homeostasis.
Some things to include:
 Visuals (pictures, flow charts, diagrams, etc) to help people understand the interaction
 The overall function of each system (independent of the other one) should be clear
 Explanations and/or diagrams of how the systems interact
 Examples of organs and how they’re helping
 Examples of tissue types and how they’re working together
 Examples of how certain cells are specialized to help them do a certain job
 Other organ systems that might also be involved and how they’re interacting
Some things to be careful about!
 Spelling counts! Look up how to spell it if you’re not sure
 Make sure your model CLEARLY shows the many ways these systems are connected
 Make sure someone could use your model to predict what might happen if part of one of the systems
wasn’t working properly
 Everyone in the group must be participating at all times. Split up tasks. If you’re not great at drawing
or your handwriting isn’t very neat, make up for it by finding more information.
 Make it colorful & neat, easy to follow