Children’s Body Science

Muscular System

Did you know that there are more than 600 muscles in your body? Your muscles control your walking, talking, sitting, standing, eating, and other daily functions. Muscles mostly help you keep your balance and blood circulation. Tendons are the soft, but tough, tissue that connects a muscle to a bone. There are three types of muscles. There are Skeletal muscles, Smooth muscles, and Cardiac muscles. Your Skeletal muscles attach to your bones. This muscle causes your arms, legs, head, and other body parts move. They react quickly, but get tired very easily. For example, if somebody was chasing you, you would start running really fast but you would get tired quickly because your muscles are too! Smooth muscles have a smooth texture and they move automatically, kind of like a light switch that will never turn off. These are found in your stomach, lungs, and intestine. Your intestine is the lower area at the end of your stomach. Your Cardiac muscle goes in many directions, but is only found in your heart. This muscle will never tire, because if it did, you would die.

Endocrine System

Your endocrine system is made up of eight glands, which are groups of cells that produce and release chemicals. Almost every organ and cell that is in your body is affected by the endocrine system. The endocrine system can sometimes even cause diseases. The most common of these diseases is diabetes (die-uh-bee-tees). Diabetes is where you have a disorder that makes you want to drink a lot and is the lack of ability to maintain the sugar in your body. There is more to what diabetes are than just that, but that’s just a little about it. It can be very serious sometimes where you even have to watch how much sugar you eat. If you had a ton of ice cream, candy, and other junk food, you would get very sick or have to go to the hospital because your body would have a hard time getting rid of all of that sugar. Pathogens, agents that cause diseases, can be very harmful to your body, so stay healthy and treat your body well!

Endocrine System Chart

Nervous System

Your nervous system is a complex, or difficult, collection of nerves and neurons, which are cells that are unique and they send signals throughout the body. The nervous system is made up of the brain, spinal cord, and retina. Your retina is part of your eye, and your spinal cord is inside of your spine, because your spine is like a protective case around your spinal cord. Your nervous system is like the body’s electrical wiring. It is made up of nerves, and the nerves start at the brain and central cord and branch out in every direction throughout your body. It acts as if it is a road that branches out into different roads that keep going on and on.

Skeletal System

If you didn’t have any bones in your body, you would look very different! In fact, you wouldn’t be able to play sports, hold on to things, walk, and you wouldn’t be able to talk! That’s because your jaw wouldn’t be there and you couldn’t move your mouth to talk with people. The skeletal system is a complex system of living and growing organs. Since your bones are organs, they need rest, nourishment, and exercise. Did you know that babies have more bones than adults? Then, when the babies grow up to be adults, some of their bones grow together! The bones in your body are connected to ligaments and muscles. Ligaments are tough bands of connective tissue that connects to many things such as two bones. Connective tissue is a material made up of fibers forming a framework and support structure for body tissues and organs. Your bones are all sorts of sizes. Larger bones are used to support your weight and help you walk. The smallest bones in your body are located in your ear. These bones don’t have to support much weight, and they just assist with hearing. Your bones are very important in your every day life! Fun Fact: If you drink milk daily, this will help your bones grow stronger!

Immune System

What is the Immune system? Your Immune system helps fight off disease causing micro-organisms. Sometimes it doesn’t succeed in protecting the body, and the micro-organisms attack the person. However, you can help your body stay safer by eating healthier, exercising regularly, and even controlling your attitude and not getting too stressed. Eating healthy food is very important. You especially need fruit, whole grains, nuts, and green vegetables.

Reflexes

Reflexes help you do a lot of things, such as play sports, catch things, blink, sneeze, and other movements that make you move quickly and react to things fast. So what exactly is a reflex? A reflex is an automatic action that your body does in response to something. Reflexes help protect your body. If you were in the kitchen and you didn’t realize that the stove top was hot and you put your hand on it, your brain would get a message saying, “Remove your hand!” Another example is if someone sprayed water in your face, your eyelids shut quickly to protect your eyes from the water. When you go to the doctor, remember how he tells you that he’s going to check your reflexes? This is because you always need to make sure that your reflexes are working correctly. If you didn’t have reflexes that were working, you could get hurt!

Reflexes in Motion

Homeostasis and Hypothalamus

Homeostasis helps you maintain inner balance. Homeostasis is maintained by hypothalamus, which is a tiny part of the brain near the middle of your head. Hypothalamus controls sleep, hunger, and other basic body processes. It makes hormones, which are chemical substances that act like messenger molecules in the body. A molecule is a group of two or more atoms that stick together. Atoms and molecules are so tiny, that no one can see them without an electron microscope!

T Cells and B Cells

T Cells and B Cells are both very important and they are also different in a lot of ways. T Cells circulate in blood and regulate immune system’s response to infected cells. However, B Cells don’t kill viruses by themselves. After the T Cells attack, the B Cells clean up the leftover viruses. B Cells make important molecules called antibodies. Without the help of these antibodies, your body wouldn’t be able to finish fighting most infections. B Cells and T Cells don’t harm your body’s healthy cells, and instead, they protect them. In your body, there is up to ten billion different B Cells. They’re too tiny to see with your eyes, but if you lined them all up, they’d be longer than one hundred soccer fields!

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