Our Project
One of the greatest mysteries of science is the
quest to learn about our bodies. The question,
“What makes us work the way we do?” has been
asked for centuries. Our project is meant to help
find a way for a high school student to come one
step closer to finding the answer to that mystery.
Our project will be focused on the circulatory
system, one of the major systems of the human
body. The reason? It’s simply one of the most
interesting of the systems.
Now that we have a general idea of our goal,
let’s look at a little background research.
The Human Body
The human body is driven by a complex relay of organs and
tissues working together in order to drive us forward.
Those relays make up eleven organ systems. Those systems
are:
-Skeletal (Provides support/protection for organs)
-Muscular (Responsible for locomotion)
-Integumentary (Protects from outside environment)
-Endocrine (Uses hormones to aid bodily functions)
-Nervous (Senses outside factors; controls body)
-Lymphatic (Protects body from disease)
-Digestive (Processes food into energy)
-Excretory (Eliminates harmful waste)
-Reproductive (Responsible for creation of new life)
-Respiratory (Takes in oxygen from outside)
-Circulatory (Brings Oxygen to all parts of body)
Routes of Supply:
The Circulatory System
The circulatory system is a marvel of the natural world.
It is made up of a vast, interlocking network of veins,
arteries and capillaries. Blood, a mixture of liquid plasma,
platelets, and red blood cells, is continuously pumped
through these passageways by the heart, a fist-sized muscle
divided into four chambers.
The path of blood is relatively simple. We’ll start out at
the heart, where freshly oxygenated blood is pumped
through the arteries to the destination for its payload.
Having delivered the much-needed oxygen, the blood
transfers to the other main blood vessels, the veins,
through the capillaries. It then returns to the heart, and is
sent to the lungs to pick up more oxygen. The cycle then
begins again.
Premise
We wanted to study the human body, but it’s very difficult
too find a good way of studying our own bodies. One of the
best ways to examine the physiology of an organism is
dissection. For obvious reasons, that’s not an option for
us. However, it did lead us to other possibilities. Was there
another organism that could be used in our place?
We started by looking at our options. Frogs, rats, and
earthworms all appeared on the list. We had to narrow
down our choices. And so we decided to close our search
to mammals. And then, we hit on something; besides outward
physical features and intelligence, one somewhat unusual
feature is our diet. We’re omnivores. That breakthrough
made one possible specimen stand out from the rest: a fetal
pig. Was this the animal we were looking for?
Execution
Our project will focus on the circulatory system. Now,
as there’s no specific procedure for a dissection, we’ll
just go over what we did.
1. Make an incision coming down from the neck to the
abdomen.
2. Carefully part organs, removing only what is needed.
Identify any organs and important items.
3. Record results and take pictures as you see fit.
4. Properly dispose of materials.
Internal
Organs
After
First
Incision
Brain
Rib Cage
and
Spine
Heart
Organs
Observations
When we dissected the fetal pig, the similarities between
the specimen’s physiology and that of the human body in the
diagrams we were using for reference were striking.
-General human features located in pig: Lungs, liver, kidneys,
stomach, intestines, ribcage, spinal cord, skull, brain, and
so on.
-Circulatory system: Not only were we able to locate the
heart and major passageways (aorta, pulmonary veins,
cardiac arteries, vena cava, etc.), but they were in virtually
the same place as we saw in the human diagram.
It seems that the fetal pig’s internal anatomy is almost
identical to ours.
Rib Cage
And
Spinal
Cord
Pig Heart
Organs
After
First
Incision
Fetal Pig
Anatomy
Route of
Circulation
In Conclusion…
The human body is a marvel of nature. The
reasons as to why able to walk, talk, breathe, and
think creatively will always be beyond our
understanding. However, the ability to dissect an
animal as close in physical makeup to us as a fetal
pig will bring a High School student as near as
possible to comprehending the incredible science
of human anatomy.
And so, our decision is that, due to the
similarities both outward and inward, a fetal pig is
close enough to a human to be used to study our
anatomy.
Sources and
Acknowledgements
“Objective 2: Systems.” Room D113. 2007
http://www.roomd113.com/TAKS%20NOTES/Objective%202%20Systems.
pdf.
“Fetal Pig Dissection.” The Biology Web. 2007
http://faculty.clintoncc.suny.edu/faculty/Michael.Gregory/files/Bio%2
0102/Bio%20102%20Laboratory/Fetal%20Pig/Fetal%20Pig.htm.
“Fetal Pig Anatomy.” The Biology Dept. at Davidson. 1 January 2005
http://www.bio.davidson.edu/courses/bio112/bio112labman/cppig.html.
“Bio: Pigs and Sheep.” Onionoz.com. 1 November 2005
http://www.oninoz.com/gallery/bio.
All music taken from the, “Gears of War Soundtrack.”
Composer – Kevin Reipl (Copyright 2007 Microsoft)