The Science Museum Trip – 1st March 2007 – by Henry Scott

We went to the Science Museum and saw a film called The Human Body.  We could see what a family’s bodies were doing all day.  The film took three years to make.  The body is made up of mainly carbon and water and every day when you wake up, the light burns off the top of the retina on your eyes.  We saw food pass down the oesophagus to the stomach where it gets churned up.  The film showed how heat rushes away from the body.  We also saw a spot being squeezed.

In the afternoon we saw Syr Hinge and Jones the Bones.  Syr Hinge told us that your heart pumps enough blood in the average life to fill 5500 swimming pools and beats 3 billion times.  Most dust is made up of bits of dead skin.  Skin is the biggest organ in the body and you get a new layer of skin every 28 days.

We also learned that hair grows faster when it is warm so it grows fastest at the Equator, and that the liver breaks down fat by making bile. The liver takes toxins out of the body.  It can be damaged by alcohol, but is the only organ that can re-grow.

Whilst we were at the Science Museum we also saw the film Lions 3D and I got to go on the dinosaur simulator ride.  We looked at the “Who am I?” exhibition and went to the “Launch Pad” where we got to play with inventions.

The Science Museum Trip – 1st March 2007 – by Megan Claridge

We went to the Human Body Day at the Science Museum.  We saw a film called “The Human Body”.  It used x-rays, thermal imaging and electron microscopy to see what a family’s bodies were doing in a whole day.  It took here years to make the film.  The body is made of lots of things, including water, carbon and traces of things like arsenic and gold.  We saw a lunch of tomato and pasta being pushed down the oesophagus by its muscles to the stomach. Every morning when we open our eyes for the first time, the light burns the top layer off our retina.  A brain cell’s impulse races at 250 miles per hour and every day some of our brain cells die.  Red blood cells die all the time, but new ones are always made.  We watched a red blood cell travel around the body on its 100 mile trek and then saw it go through a beating heart.  We also saw them in the lungs collecting some fresh oxygen. 

The three smallest bones in the body are in the ear; they are called the Malleus, the Incus and the Stapes.  The bones are also known as the Hammer, the Anvil and the Stirrup.  Inside the ear there is a Cochlea.  Inside the Cochlea there are tiny little hairs.  10,000 of them bunched together would only be as thick as a hair on your head.  They fall our all the time so as you get older your hearing gets worse.  The louder a noise is the more hairs fall out.

With special equipment we saw how the heat dashes away from the body after exercise and a close up of a spot being squeezed. 

Next we saw an egg being fertilised by a sperm.  We saw how hands are sculpted by cells dying in between the flesh to create fingers.  We learned that babies can swim naturally up to six months after birth and in this time they have a diving reflux which shuts off their lungs so that any water taken in goes into the stomach instead. 

In the afternoon we saw Syr Hinge and “Jones the Bones”.  Syr Hinge told us that your heart pumps enough blood in the average life to fill 5500 swimming pools and beats three billion times roughly.  In a baby, the heart is one of the first things to develop.  Arteries take blood away from the heart and veins take blood to it. 

Syr Hinge told us that our ears are made of cartilage as well as your nose and that the nose has hairs that direct the dust and dirt to your stomach.  Most of the dust is caused by skin which is the largest organ in the human body.  We also lose 10 billion scales of skin a day.  We get a completely new layer of skin every single month.  The inner skin is called the dermis and the waterproof layer on the outside is called the epidermis.  If you cut yourself and bleed, then you have gone through the epidermis. 

If you cut your lungs out, they would have enough tubing in them to cover an average room’s floor!  Don’t get any blood on the carpet!

Even though you have two kidneys, you can survive with just the one.  Kidneys flush your system out.  That is why you have to drink lots of water.  People can sometimes get kidney stones which are quite painful.  Syr Hinge told us that the hair on your head is dead, but is alive inside your head.  In warmer places, like near the Equator, your hair grows faster.  Your head gives off the most heat from your body.Our liver produces bile.  Bile breaks down fat.  It also takes the bad stuff away from the body, but too much alcohol can damage it.  The liver is the only organ that can re-grow.

When Jones the Bones had finished, Dad, Mum, Henry and I watched a film on Lions in the Kalahari, which is in Africa.  We spent sometime in the Launch Pad doing activities and then went into the “Who am I?” exhibition.  We thought we would have gone home by now, but guess what?  We had a go on a simulator ride:  It was about dinosaurs.