Science sensations

By Brylie Behrens, Rylee List, and Sophia Sperry

 

There is always something new within the classrooms of Coon Rapids-Bayard. This winter, middle school and high school science teacher Ashlynn Schubert has experienced some scientific sensations. 

 

More specifically, sixth grade students simulated how the kidneys work and high schoolers in anatomy and physiology dissected a chicken wing as a culminating lab of their skeletal and muscular system units. 

 

Regarding the sixth grade lab, Schubert noted, “Water and food coloring represented blood and waste and the filter paper and cotton balls represented the kidneys. Students poured water into the funnel to simulate filtering the waste out of blood as it moves through the kidneys.”

 

As for the high school lab, Schubert added, “Students were dissecting the chicken wing to get a look at how the bicep and tricep muscles flex and extend the forearm and how the elbow joint works.”

 

Bryce Lewis and Jace Baker are juniors enrolled in Schubert’s anatomy and physiology class.

 

“My favorite part of the chicken wing dissection lab was pushing down the bicep to move the lower arm of the wing,” Lewis said. “I learned the most about how muscles, tendons, and bones work together to create movement. This lab helped me better understand how the human arm works, too.”

 

“It is critical we used all of the tools properly,” Baker reported. “Seeing the bone marrow was incredibly interesting.”

 

Sixth graders Nora Eischeid and Jarel Munoz both found it important that they were learning about a very vital part of the human body, the kidneys.

 

“My favorite part of our labs is that it is a hands-on way for kids to visualize what is happening in the body,” Schubert concluded. “It just makes everything easier to comprehend.”