How can you teach students about the digestive system in an interactive way? Unless you’re Ms. Frizzle, it’s hard to take a field trip inside a stomach, but with virtual simulations like ExploreLearning Gizmos, students can get hands-on experiences as they learn about the different internal organs and chemicals that aid in digestion.
What is the digestive system?
From the small intestine to the large intestine and everything in between, the digestive system consists of organs that help a body digest food, absorb nutrients, and eliminate waste. Digestion is the breakdown of food into simpler components. Absorption is the passage of nutrients and water through the walls of the small and large intestines. The digestive system turns food into energy and nutrients to help the body survive, energize, grow, and repair cells.
Using online labs to introduce the digestive system
Guide students through the process of digestion with the interactive Digestive System Gizmo. This digestive system lab allows students to engineer their own working system to demonstrate the process of digestion using large and small organs and various foods (from pecan pie to cheeseburgers!) to discover how the human body breaks down food, absorbs nutrients, and processes waste.
As students progress through the Gizmo, they are supported with a Student Exploration Sheet that activates background knowledge and guides learning as they experiment with various parts of the digestive system. For more details about teaching this Gizmo, check out the Professional Development Video.
Gizmo Lesson Objectives:
- Explore the three functions of the digestive system: digestion, absorption, and elimination.
- Create a model of the human digestive system using available organs and cells.
- Determine the importance of mechanical digestion by the mouth, stomach, and bile.
- Describe the steps of chemical digestion for carbohydrates, proteins, and fats.
- Explain how nutrients are absorbed into the body.
Each Gizmo also includes a teacher guide and vocabulary for easy lesson planning and implementation. All documents are fully customizable (Microsoft Word, Google Doc, and PDF versions) to fit your teaching needs. Assessment questions are included in each Gizmo, so you can quickly monitor and assess learning.
Gizmos allow students to engage with Science and Engineering Practices in interactive ways. This virtual simulation lets students deeply engage with the engineering design process. In Activity A, students design their own digestive system (engineering skills: define the problem, generate and evaluate multiple solutions, build and test prototypes, and optimize a solution). Students explore mechanical and chemical digestion in Activity B. In Activity C, students determine how different nutrients are absorbed (engineering skills: generate and evaluate multiple solutions, build and test prototypes, and optimize a solution). In Activity D, students apply all of their learning to demonstrate their understanding of the digestive system.
“I love that the Digestive System Gizmo allows students to view and discover how different parts of the digestive system work.”
-Jennifer Cherry, high school science teacher
Other human body simulations
Looking for other Gizmos to help students explore the amazing human body?
Check out these interactive labs.
