Kids in Medicine

        Hi, my name is Autumn and I’m going to tell you about our field trip to Kids in Medicine.

       We learned all about how the heart works. We played a game where some people were red blood cells, some were white blood cells, and others were platelets. The red blood cells would carry oxygen to the brain or muscles. When they got to the brain or the muscles, they exchanged oxygen for carbon dioxide and went back to the lungs. White blood cells tried to destroy diseases and infections. Ms. T was an infection. They had to watch carefully to make sure that there were no diseases or infections. Platelets would try to block up the parts of the body that were bleeding. It took 2 or 3 platelets to block up just 1 gap. If they didn’t and a red blood cell came around, it would stay on the outside of the gap.

       We also went and learned about how to take care of our heart. We watched a funny cartoon where this guy was eating a couple dozen donuts a day. Some evil bad guy got all mad for no good reason. The donut guy was taken to the evil bad guy, and was put under so much stress that he had a heart attack. We demonstrated a heart attack by having someone crawl through a tunnel that was empty, and one that had plaque (the plaque was a bunch of yellow balls). THE PERSON HAD A HEART ATTACK! They had a heart attack because the oxygen-rich blood didn’t get to part of the heart in time.

      There was also a part where we tested our hypothesis that aerobic exercise made your heart work faster than anaerobic exercise. We tested it by doing weightlifting for 1 minute and jumping jacks for 1 minute. We also took our pulse after resting, doing weightlifting, and doing jumping jacks. My pulse for resting was 44, for weightlifting it was 76, and for jumping jacks it was 120. Our hypothesis was right!

    Of course, there was also the dissection of the pig’s heart part. We all put on gloves and a gown. We all got lab partners, like Maya and Georgia or Nate and Trevor. I was lab partners with Isabel. MacLean got Dr. Stocker! Lucky! Once everyone was paired up, we started feeling the heart and dissecting it. I thought it was fun to learn about how it works.

    We also saw a real heart and lungs from a 92-year-old woman. Her heart was covered in yellowish stuff that we learned was fat. Her lungs had black spots which we were told were parts that “died.”

    I had a wonderful time at Kids in Medicine. Do you think you’d like it, and if you’ve already gone, did you like it? I know I did. Posted by Autumn Bryant