Video “Osmosis Jones” Lesson Plan
This video falls great between the Cell unit and the beginning of the Body Systems unit. It is a
comedy story about how the body gets sick and all the jobs of certain parts of your body and
what they do to fight germs in the body. Much of the information is based on sound facts and
then played up to be entertaining also.
Day 1- Students begin the video with an introduction about the purpose. Students are told that
the “makeup” of the organism begins small. Cell to tissue to organ to organ systems and finally
to the actual organism.
Students are told to listen carefully to what is being said and the habits of the characters.
Day 2- Continue the video
Day 3/4- Questions given to students. They can use their phones and work in groups to locate
the answers. Correction of the paperwork questions is also done if time permits. Due to the fact
that some students do not have a phone with the internet, some paperwork must be taken
home to complete and so correction may occur on day 4 after the students have had a chance
to go home and complete the questions.
After correction I have a power point presentation to show the characters and which star was
the voice. It just wraps up the lesson and the students enjoy seeing the face of the voice.
I then follow up with another power point presentation about each body system and the organs
that are involved. If time permits we talk about what each organ does for the system.
Group Names__________________________________________________________________
Class period_______________________________________
Date_____________________________________________
Osmosis Jones Questions
General questions
1. Why does it matter if Osmosis is put into a “scab” or a “nosebleed?” Where would that
leave him?
2. Why was the “flu virus shot” considered an informant?
3. What can a pill that is for cold and flu do for a body? List at least 3 items, more if you
find them.
4. What do you think Drix meant when he said that Osmosis Jones had “pliable cellular
dynamics?”
5. What did Frank mean when he said, “Chicken going down rough, chicken going down
rough!”
6. Many medicines are put into our system with water and transformed into an
“effervescent” formula. What does “effervescent” mean when we are talking about a
medicine?
7. This question requires your group to read aloud. Take turns
passing the paper around to read aloud and listen . . . . . this is
interesting stuff!:
During your history classes you were informed about a disease that arrived
in Europe by sea in October 1347 when 12 Genoese trading ships docked at
the Sicilian port of Messina after a long journey through the Black Sea. The
people who gathered on the docks to greet the ships were met with a
horrifying surprise: Most of the sailors aboard the ships were dead, and those
who were still alive were gravely ill. They were overcome with fever, unable to
keep food down and delirious from pain. Strangest of all, they were covered in
mysterious black boils that oozed blood and pus and gave their illness its
name: the “Black Death.”
The Sicilian authorities hastily ordered the fleet of “death ships” out of the harbor,
but it was too late: Over the next five years, the mysterious Black Death would kill
more than 20 million people in Europe–almost one-third of the continent’s
population. Find out what the name of this dreaded disease was. they were
scarcely equipped for the horrible reality of the Black Death. “In men and women alike,”
the Italian poet Giovanni Boccaccio wrote, “at the beginning of the malady, certain
swellings, either on the groin or under the armpits…waxed to the bigness of a common
apple, others to the size of an egg, some more and some less, and these the vulgar named
plague-boils.” Blood and pus seeped out of these strange swellings, which were followed
by a host of other unpleasant symptoms–fever, chills, vomiting, diarrhea, terrible aches
and pains–and then, in short order, death.
The Black Death was terrifyingly, indiscriminately contagious: “the mere touching of the
clothes,” wrote Boccaccio, “appeared to itself to communicate the malady to the
toucher.” The disease was also terrifyingly efficient. People who were perfectly healthy
when they went to bed at night could be dead by morning.
Understanding the Black Death
Today, scientists understand that the Black Death, now known as the plague, is spread by a
bacillus called Yersina pestis. (The French biologist Alexandre Yersin discovered this germ at
the end of the 19th century.) They know that the bacillus travels from person to person
pneumonically, or through the air, as well as through the bite of infected fleas and rats.
Today, this grim sequence of events is terrifying but comprehensible. In the middle of the 14th century,
however, there seemed to be no rational explanation for it. No one knew exactly how the Black Death was
transmitted from one patient to another–according to one doctor, for example, “instantaneous death
occurs when the aerial spirit escaping from the eyes of the sick man strikes the healthy person standing
near and looking at the sick”–and no one knew how to prevent or treat it. Physicians relied on crude and
unsophisticated techniques such as bloodletting and boil-lancing (practices that were dangerous as well as
unsanitary) and superstitious practices such as burning aromatic herbs and bathing in rosewater or
vinegar. Many people fled the cities for the countryside, but even there they could not escape the disease.
It affected cows, sheep, goats, pigs and chickens as well as people. In fact, so many sheep died that one of
the consequences of the Black Death was a European wool shortage. Many people, desperate to save
themselves even abandoned their sick and dying loved ones.
The Black Death epidemic had run its course by the early 1350s, but the plague reappeared every few
generations for centuries. Modern sanitation and public-health practices have greatly mitigated the impact
of the disease but have not eliminated it.
Because they did not understand the biology of the disease, many people believed that the Black Death
was a kind of divine punishment–retribution for sins against God such as greed, blasphemy, heresy,
fornication and worldliness. By this logic, the only way to overcome the plague was to win God’s
forgiveness.
Some people coped with the terror and uncertainty of the Black Death epidemic by lashing out at
their neighbors; others coped by turning inward and fretting about the condition of their own
souls. Some upper-class men joined processions of flagellants that traveled from town to town
and engaged in public displays of penance and punishment: They would beat themselves and one
another with heavy leather straps studded with sharp pieces of metal while the townspeople
looked on.
The Black Death epidemic had run its course by the early 1350s, but the plague reappeared every few
generations for centuries. Modern sanitation and public-health practices have greatly mitigated the impact
of the disease but have not eliminated it.
As a group—find out what the common name for The Black Plague is:____________________________
8. Look up “Red Death” and list 5 information “tidbits” that you find.
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
9. Look up the pathway from the time a person swallows a pill. List each organ (there are a
couple helper things) along the way. There are many more things going on that you are
not required to figure out. Remember, just the pathway of a pill from the mouth to the
anus---this is the digestive system. See if you can figure it all out!

DIGESTIVE SYSTEM MOUTH TO ANUS
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
10. What does the word “contagious” mean?
11. What does it mean when Thrax says, “We need to turn up the heat in here.”
12. What is a “colonic?”
13. What is “phlegm (pronounced flem)?”
14. What is another name for phlegm?
15. What is the purpose of a “sphincter muscle?”
16. How would you describe Frank’s health?
17. What did Dripps (Drix) means when he said he was “soothing and cooling” the throat?
18. What is a Swedish facial?
19. What organ would a “Swedish facial” clean?
20. What are all the “mafia” in Frank’s armpit supposed to represent?
21. How does a “time-released” pill work in the human body?
22. What organ system does the nose belong in?
23. What is the difference between a “virus” and “bacteria” as far as using an antibiotic?
24. Why might it be unhealthy to consume raw oysters?
25. What “system” in the body would try to fix Frank’s infected toe?
26. What causes a zit?
27. What is the job of a “white blood cell?”
Refer to the “icky drink” fixed for Osmosis at the zit bar as to how this may actually
work:
28. Why were the names Ralph, Chuck, and Hurley used when referring to the “throw-up”
scene of Frank and Shayne’s teacher?
29. What is beer? Ingredients and the actual substance that you are drinking? Consider
what “fermentation” means? Is it really good for you to drink---healthy, that is? Explain
your answer.
30. Can a white blood cell (WBC) actually perform osmosis? If so, explain? Define osmosis
as your group understands it.
31. Can a virus really mess with a person’s DNA? Explain what you found out:
32. How was Thrax eliminated? Would this really work to kill a virus?
33. What body system is the “lungs” a part of?
What is the job of the lungs—explain in detail:
34. What body system is the “heart” a part of?
35. List the body systems and the benefits that would come to Frank if he began to hike
more:
Body System
You can add more spaces if you need to.
Benefits of Hiking