The Little Mole Who Knew It Was None of His Business - Digestion
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The Story of the Little Mole Who Knew it was None of His Business by Werner Holzwarth follows the quest of a mole as he tries to find out who did their business on his head. This is a difficult mission for a short-sighted mole! As he asks his neighbours, mole learns that poo comes in many shapes and sizes. He asks a horse, hare, cow and pig if the business on top of his head was their business - it wasn't. Eventually the experts in this business, the flies, explain that it was the work of the dog. Mole gets his revenge and carries on with his day. This funny tale creates a great setting through which children can explore:
Key scientific vocabulary: digestive system, nutrition, nutrients, mouth, teeth, canines, incisor, molar, pre-molar, saliva, tongue, rip, tear, chew, grind, cut, oesophagus (gullet), stomach, small intestine, large intestine, rectum, anus Other fiction books with a similar theme: Demon Dentist – David Walliams Crocodiles Don't Brush Their Teeth – Colin Fancy Horrid Henry Tricks the Tooth Fairy - Francesca Simon |
Taste Test
Terrific Scientific Taste Test
Are you a super taster? Super tasters experience bitter tastes more strongly than other people; this is because they have a higher number of taste receptors within fungiform papillae, the big pink bumps on your tongue which contain your taste buds, enabling you to taste sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami. By counting the number of fungiform papillae, you will be able to determine whether you are a super taster, taster or non taster.
The children could investigate how many of each type of taster they have in their classroom. They could investigate whether super tasters, tasters or non tasters are more or less likely to enjoy certain types of food such as kale.
Animals, Including Humans
A series of lesson plans by Hamilton Trust exploring the topic of digestion.
The Digestive System
A series of short films by Tig Tag exploring the theme of digestion.
The first film poses a true or false question - Sloths only poo once a week. It's true - they have a very slow digestion.
The second film asks which organ is the odd one out - the lungs / small intestine / large intestine / stomach.
The third film is a presentation exploring the digestive system from one end to the other.
These films are accompanied by teachers notes and lesson plans.
Food for thought: food science
A series of resources exploring what's inside the food we eat. Beginning with the Plant Munch where children investigate which parts of plants they are eating - Tubers (Potatoes) Stalks (Rhubarb) Leaves (lettuce). Other activities include Fat-tastic which gets children to test different foods to see what their fat content is and an experiment to see which foods contain lots of starch.
The children could then use this information to plan a healthy packed lunch or to analyse the school dinner menu in their school.
Dazzling digestion
This activity from the Wellcome Trust Crunch Kit looks at the process of digestion. A film shows teachers how to use this demo to teach children about the process using a chocolate cake and a pair of tights. Children could then respond to this model by creating their own 3D models of digestion.
Further activities encourage children to consider the role of calcium in their diets - for this do a simple comparative test, soaking one eggs in an acidic liquid such as vinegar and another egg in water. Children could develop this test by investigating how toothpaste protects teeth from acid.
Fake Poo
Both naturalists and archeologists study the contents of poo. Children might consider what clues they are looking for. Mole needed to look at the poo carefully, to identify the diet of the animal that made it. Those clues would have pointed to the perpetrator.
In this activity produced by the Young Archaeologists' Club, allow students to investigate the diets of ancient cultures using safe 'fake poo'. The notes include recipes for making Aztec, Tudor, Viking and Roman poo. Students examine their contents and are able to identify differences in the diets of these cultures.
As well as developing investigative skills, the fake poo can lead onto a discussion of how modern diets differ from ancient ones. Suitable for primary and secondary aged students.
How To Dissect Owl Pellets
The mole needed help to find out who had done a poo on his head. Each creature has a different diet and therefore their poo is different. Owl pellets however come out from the other end. They are in fact,all the parts of creatures such as voles, shrews and mice that an owl cannot digest, assembled into a handy pellet, which the owl regurgitates.
Owls consume prey such as mice, voles and smaller birds whole. When the prey reaches the first stomach, digestive juices start to break down the soft tissues. After this, the partially digested remains enter a second stomach called the gizzard. Here, the indigestible parts are compacted into a sausage-shaped pellet, which hours later, is pushed up and out of the beak!
Owl pellets are a brilliant way to find out about what owls eat. It is an easy and simple investigation to do with children. You can obtain owl pellets through some local wildlife trusts from owl sanctuaries.
Soak pellets for about half an hour before a dissection. This can make them easier to take apart, especially if they’re fairly compact. Older pellets can be crumbly so may not need soaking. A clean yogurt pot or similar, with a few drops of clear disinfectant works well. The pellet can then be placed on some newspaper or a paper plate, ready to be examined. This PDF takes you through the activity stage by stage.