Biology- the digestive roller-coaster
Characters: Steve, the professor, talking items of food.
Locations: the garage, a picture of the human digestive system, animated corn.
Scene One
Professor: oh hey Steve, how are you today?
Steve: Good Morning. Oh, I’m OK thanks, but I am a bit hungry. I didn’t have any breakfast
this morning. (Steve notices an old pizza box on the table) Is there any pizza left? Oh great
cheese and sweet corn it is delicious.(Steve eats the last piece of pizza, which contains lots
of corn, very quickly).
Professor: Hey Steve, what? Pizza for breakfast? Are you serious? You really should eat
more healthily. You know, your body needs a balance of vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates,
proteins, fats and fibres. You know that? They know that (the professor points to the
camera).
Professor to the camera: Do you have a healthy and balanced diet? Do you know why
some foods are good for you and some foods are not so good? You can discuss it if you like.
(the professor turns back to look at Steve who has finished the pizza).
Professor: Steve! You really should chew your food a bit more. Your body can´t digest
unchewed corn, but it does give me a good idea. We can watch the corn move through your
digestive system, stay perfectly still. Now we will have to speed up time but this should be
interesting.
(Steve’s body turns into a diagram of the digestive system and zooms in to fill the whole
screen / or the professor open Steve’s body like a fridge or similar special effect)
Scene Two – inside Steve’s body / on the diagram
(the screen is filled with a diagram of the human digestive system, in the mouth we see a
small bit of corn and we follow it all the way through Steve’s body)
Professor: look, you see breaking down and digesting the corn should have started in the
mouth, that´s where the teeth and your jaws can bite into the corn and grind it down into
smaller pieces.
This is so your food can go down your oesophagus and your oesophagus goes from near
your mouth down to your stomach, which is located here.
Hey, look the corn is moving down Steve´s oesophagus.
(the camera zooms in and we see a slice of pizza containing several kernels of corn. Each
kernel of corn has a face smiling, and shouting “Hey, yeah, oesophagus, cool!” as if they are
going down a waterslide).
Professor: the pizza is in your stomach now. There are really strong acids in your stomach
and it’s where chemicals and enzymes really digest your food. Your food is changed into a
liquid here, and then released into your small intestines. How interesting!
(the camera zooms in and we see pizza slice dissolve but the corn’s happy little faces are
smiling and singing as if in the bath, “Near the stomach, cool!”)
Professor: because the outside of the corn contain cellulose, it breaks down very slowly, too
slowly for your relatively fast digestive system. So it just gets passed from the stomach
straight into the small intestine.
Corn: Cool, the stomach, yay.
So it is here, in your small intestines, that all of the good things in your food, like the vitamins,
minerals, carbohydrates, proteins and fats are all sucked up.
Now, your liver here, your gallbladder here and your pancreas here all help with digestion but
we do not need the details now because look, the corn hasn’t broken up. It´s moving through
the small intestines.
(the camera zooms in and we see the corn’s faces are smiling, and shouting “Hey, this small
intestine
is
like
a
rollercoaster,
yay!”
as
they
travel
along).
Professor: Wow, the corn is now moving into the large intestine, the large intestine is also
called the colon. Let´s watch the corn move through the large intestine, look.
(the camera zooms into the pieces of corn, “phew, it is horrible in here, this is bad, freedom!”
Professor: hehey, now the corn is with the rest of your body’s waste and it is about to exit
out through the rectum, and hey, Steve, this is when you need to go to the toilet.
Steve: Oops, I think I need the toilet right now!
Professor: bye-bye Steve. Have a good... sit down! And tell me if you see any corn, haha!
Well, that´s certainly an interesting if not a very nice experiment for you to try at home with
some corn.
Professor (to the camera): Well I think we have learned a little more about the digestion
process. So let’s put it into practice. Firstly you need a hand out from your teacher. And then
I want you to put these words in the right place on your diagram. The words are:
(the words: oesophagus, rectum, stomach, mouth, small intestine and large intestine appear
on the screen)
Professor: oesophagus, rectum, stomach, mouth, small intestine and large intestine. Good
luck, ok.
So if you have finished your diagram should look like this. Great! So before we say good bye
there is one more task. I want you to use these linking phrases to describe the digestion
process in full. Ok, the words you need are these: firstly, secondly, after that, and then, next
and finally. Ok.
Steve: Have you got any toilet paper?
Professor: Good luck with that. Oh, hey, what´s that Steve?
Steve: Toilet paper!
Professor: No toilet paper? Haha, should I give him some toilet paper? What? Really?
Haha, no, look I´d better go, ok, ciao for now and see you soon, bye
(splash)