Unit 5 Reflection

This unit was about the Digestive, Endocrine, and Lymphatic Systems. Metabolism was included in there with the digestive system to go further into how the body uses the nutrients it gets from food. These systems seem rather unrelated but of course everything in our body is connected some how and these all have to do with our bodies digestion and absorption of nutrients, the control of the hormones in relation to using the nutrients and sending them to all the right places and the waste from cells being carried back to the blood stream to be filtered out. The Digestive System is a much more complicated system that we are led to believe and takes much longer to complete than I thought because of the vast size of the organs. We did a lab to estimate how long our digestive systems were from mouth to anus and I was surprised that mine reached all the way across our class room measuring to be about 964 centimeters.
After learning about the digestive system we went into detail about the metabolic system and how our bodies use the energy stored. There are three different states the body can be in when using the body's  stored energy: the fed state, the fasting state, and the starving state. We learned the path of all the major molecules from ingestion to where ever they will be used.

Next we learned about the endocrine system which definitely was the most complicated in my opinion especially because of having to memorize what hormones come from what organs or glands ad what is their purpose. An interesting bit that I learned in this section was that epinephrine and adrenaline are just different words for the same hormone, so all this type of teachers switching between the two and myself not realizing they were the same chemical. 

Finally, the last section of this unit was about the very mysterious lymphatic system which everyone has heard of, but never really understood. The lymphatic system has three major jobs: immunity, lipid absorption, and fluid recovery. It is made up of a clear fluid called lymph traveling around the body in lymph vessels to remove the waste from body cells and bring them into the blood stream to be filtered out. The fascinating thing about the lymphatic vessels is that they start at the capillaries move up to vessels and to the lymph nodes that are filled with lymphocytes to kill foreign invaders. 

The most challenging thing about this unit was keeping everything strait and making sure that I associated the correct organs and hormones with the correct system. Now lets check back to see how I'm doing on my goals for this semester. I said that I would be fully prepared for test and start studying earlier than the night before and to get more regular sleep. I have achieved neither of those two yet, except the sleep one for a couple days maybe. Even with the best intentions, my lack of motivation trumps any will to study or sleep. Now that I have had to think about all of this stuff again I am going to put more effort at least into the sleep goal so that my life is a little healthier.

Stringing Together My Intestines

1. In this lab we used string and multi colored ribbons to estimate the length of our digestive system from out mouth to our large intestine. For each part we mapped out we measured it relative to our own body. For all but the small and large intestine we measures it against our body but for those two we had to use our height to estimate how long they are. By doing this we saw for ourselves how much fits inside our bodies and how much our food has to go through for our body to get everything it can from it.

2. My "intestines" were about 964 centimeters long, of course that is not a perfect number, and I am 5'9" making me 175.26 centimeters. seeing that my intestines are a little less than 6 times longer than I am is shocking but also fascinating. Our bodies can store all of that because our intestines are fairly small in diameter and they are folded in on themselves over and over in a pretty gross game of organ Tetris. 

3. I think that food takes about 5-6 hours to completely go through your digestive system. According to MayoClinic.org food takes approximately 24-72 hours to fully move through your system so I was very far off. Fiber and physical activity are two large factors in how long food takes to go through. Too little fiber causes the food to lose too much water making it slower and physical activity stimulates the movement of your organs so it will make it faster. 

4. Digestion is the more physical breakdown of the food while absorption is the taking all of the nutrients from the food after it has been broken down enough to go through the folds of the small intestine. Digestion mainly involves the mouth and the stomach and absorption mainly includes the small and large intestines.

5. I want to learn more about the bacteria that are in the large intestines because that is a really cool concept. I also want to learn more about the exact science of the small intestine. 

Goals

1. Be fully prepared for tests. This semester I will actually study for all my tests, especially anatomy because those tests are one of the more demanding ones. I will do homework to learn from it rather then just finish it and I will practice with the information for a few days before the tests to be completely comfortable with it and be confident when walking into the class to take the test. For anatomy I will keep everything in order and make a study guide as the unit goes that I can study from when the time comes making the reviewing much easier. On the days I have anatomy, I also have my math class and most often I need to prioritize math over anatomy as tests are much more meaningful there so I will make sure to schedule time for both instead of focusing on only one.

2. Get sleep. In general I need to lower my stress levels and a huge part of getting there is to get enough and a regular amount of sleep. For the first month or so my goal is to get at least 6 hours a night to get used to sleeping at a regular time and for the next few months my goal will be 7.5-8 hours every night. To both lower stress and allow time for sleep I'm going to start homework as soon as I get home from school. I'm not going to put it off and I'll also do work ahead of time and not procrastinate on both large projects and nightly assignments. I have a bad habit of drinking coffee at night to stay awake so I will avoid drinking coffee during the afternoon and evening to make sure I have no caffeine in my system when I try to sleep. Specifically on days when I have color guard I will do as much homework as possible before practice starts so the when I get home at around 9:30 I can just have a snack and then head to bed and not worry about finishing my work that late at night.