Drugs can affect all parts of the body including teeth, skin, heart, brain, and lungs. Use an interactive that explores topics like addiction and the brain, steroid use and skin breakouts, methamphetamine use and rotting teeth, smoking...

Let your heart rejoice! A unique video explains in detail how the heart works to transport blood throughout the human body. Use it during your human body unit, and then discuss the accompanying comprehension questions as a review of the...

With a partner, youngsters measure their pulse and breathing rates, both at rest and after running in place for a minute. While this activity is not novel, the lesson plan includes a large-scale classroom graphing activity and other...

Compare a variety of animals' circulatory systems to the human circulatory system. Paul Andersen uses his SMART Board to show the differences between two, three, and four chamber hearts, focusing on the human heart. 

What is the relationship among the heart, circulation, and exercise? Your class members will explore first-hand how different physical exercises affect an individual's heart rate. They will begin by learning how to measure their own...

What a festive way to examine what happens to the heart in different gravitational situations! Small groups place a water-filled balloon in different locations (on a table top, in a tub of water, and held in a vertical position), drawing...

Break hearts with this lesson plan: chicken or sheep hearts, that is! Your class examines the external and internal structure of the heart with a dissection activity. A handy anatomy resource provides the necessary materials for...

Lub-dub, lub-dub. Why does the heart beat? Why does blood circulate throughout the body? Life scientists find out how important circulation is for dissolving and dispersing materials by timing how long it takes for food coloring spread...

In an emergency, your brain works overtime to process more information in a smaller amount of time, almost as if you were slowing time down. The job of a firefighter requires this kind of fight-or-flight response and quick thinking. The...

The topic of this video is sure to get hearts pumping! Mia and Zoe just finish racing and discuss what is going on in the circulatory system. They expound on the capillaries, veins, arteries, the structure of the heart, and the...

Pump up your class while studying the cardiovascular system with this pair of activities. In one, learners record heart rates during different actions. In the second, they read kid-friendly heart health articles online and then write a...

Learners design a pumping device that will effectively pump fluid through a model "cardiovascular system." They explore the effects of too much and too little pressure on a circulatory system.

Assess anatomists' understanding of the structure of the mammalian heart by giving a pretest. Have them visit some websites to further learn about heart anatomy. Then take them into the laboratory to perform a dissection so that they get...

Immerse biology learners in circulation and gas exchange for both simple organisms and higher animals. Six pages of short-answer questions and labelling of the human respiratory system are included. This assignment was written for an...

Grover discusses the heart in this short video. He uses a stethoscope to listen to his heartbeat and discusses the positive effects of exercise.

CT scans and MRIs, ultrasounds, and X-rays. Welcome to the world of the radiologist, the specialist who interprets the medical images provided by some amazing technology. The narrator of a short video, a cardiac radiologist, describes...

Take heart! Here's a instructional activity that will encourage learners to notice details. After listening to Sarah Vaughan singing "My Funny Valentine" and noting how the word heart relates to Valentine's Day, scholars observe a human...

Nothing is more relevant than the study of the human body. A series of 10 human body lessons begins with growth, ends with reproduction, and hits all the major systems in between. Each lesson provides opening and closing activities as...

The body is one big life-sized puzzle! A hands-on lesson builds on the idea and has individuals create life-size models of the body including all important organs of the digestive, circulatory, and respiratory systems. After building...

Teamwork makes the dream work! A well-designed lesson helps learners discover how the circulatory and respiratory systems team up to keep their bodies alive. The lesson includes a diagram of the major connections between the lungs and...

A little bit of this and a little bit of that. The final lesson of the 21-part unit assesses learners on each animal and plant system. The test covers the basics of each system and focuses on key vocabulary from the unit.

Watch as your pupils' hearts get pumping! An interactive activity has individuals record their heart rates after completing different activities. Each task has a different degree of physical activity. They then graph their results and...

It's time to get to the heart of the matter! After introducing the heart anatomy in the previous lesson in a series on the systems of the body, the lesson looks at the specifics. Learners complete a series of six activities to study the...