The Heart as a Pump – Science Spectacular, Manchester Science Festival
“It was awesome and gross” was how one young visitor described his visit to ‘The Heart as a Pump’ exhibit
– truly praise indeed! The exhibit, which was based in Manchester Museum, formed part of ‘Science
Spectacular’ at the Manchester Science Festival.
It was run by researchers from the Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and Faculty of Life Sciences at the
University of Manchester and proved to be a fun day for all involved. Participants began their tour of the
cardiovascular system with an interactive display of animal hearts where they were encouraged to don
surgical gloves and touch ‘real’ hearts. Children tried to match pictures of various animals to the individual
hearts – whilst they found it easy to distinguish between the mouse and giraffe hearts we had on display,
differences between pig and sheep hearts were less obvious.
No one could believe how big our giraffe heart was. The anatomy of the heart was explained to older
visitors by the researchers present and knowledge was consolidated
with an informative poster. Feedback from young and old was
extremely positive.
“I liked messing with the hearts”
“I have enjoyed finding out about the heart, especially touching the
real ones!!!”
“The hearts were cool!! Loved it …”
“It is amazing. I didn’t know how big or small a heart was.”
“I liked seeing the water flea through the microscope”
Moving further round the exhibit,
participants learned about the function
of the heart. An opportunity to view
the beating hearts of water fleas down
a microscope and to try and count the
heart beat under different conditions
illustrated clearly how this may be
changed. This was further explained in
an ECG demonstration where
measurements were taken on a very
noble, an ultimately exhausted, PhD student at rest and after exercise. Children appeared to gain a lot of
pleasure from making him run faster!
An interactive model of the circulation (purchased with funds from the Physiological Society) illustrated the
role of the heart and blood vessels within the body. Participants were able to pump de-oxygenated ‘blood’
to the lungs and oxygenated ‘blood’ to the rest of the body. They were then given the opportunity to think
about what can go wrong with the circulation in disease. A particularly messy activity was our model of
healthy and diseased arteries. By pouring ‘blood’ (actually fish tank gravel) through ‘arteries’ which were
healthy and those which had atherosclerotic plaques in them children learned how occlusion of vessels
slowed and, or prevented, blood flow. This was related, in discussion and on a poster, to heart attacks and
stroke, and the importance of healthy lifestyle was highlighted. Children especially loved this activity and
got extremely enthusiastic – we had to borrow a hoover to clear up all the spilled gravel/blood.
“Lovely. Educational. Messy.”
“It was brilliant! I liked dressing
up.”
Dressing up as a scientist was another popular activity. Children put on lab coats, gloves, goggles and hats
as they learned the importance of safety in the laboratory. A parental photo-shoot followed for the
majority of ‘scientists’.
Participants were given a quiz sheet to work through as they moved through the exhibit consolidating
knowledge gained and, as some questions were quite difficult, encouraging interaction with the research
scientists. General information about the cardiovascular system was related to current research interests
of the scientists whenever possible. Children were given a ‘goody bag’ to take home with colouring pencils
and pictures, a word search and an entry form into our poetry competition. Although the closing date has
not yet been reached, we hope the offer of prizes such as a microscope will encourage entries. We will
post the winning entries on the Cardiovascular Research Group website. We also hope this will ensure that
children will reflect upon what they have learned during their visit to our exhibit and thus continue their
learning.
Feedback about the event was excellent. All in all it was an exhausting but extremely enjoyable and
worthwhile day.
“Very entertaining and knowledgeable, very important and useful”
“Wow! Lovely event; enjoyed it!”
“Excellent day! Thanks to all the staff – my two children and I had a great day. Thanks.”
“Loved the variety of exhibits. Great fun for all the family”
“Excellent props and info provided by the workforce. I have thoroughly enjoyed the day!
Thanks again!”