Human Body - Day 7

Today was BRAINS! 

We started by reading about the different parts of the brain - cerebrum, cerebellum, brain stem, and thalamus.  Then we did a few experiments to discover how our brains work.

The first one was arm levetation.   Go to a doorway and press as hard as you can with both arms against the door frame for 30 seconds.

Then relax your arms to your sides and your arms will naturally rise.

This is because your brain has been telling your muscles to work but they couldn't.  When there is no resistance there, your muscles will do as they are told.

Then we tried the dollar drop.  You drop a dollar bill from above your head and then try to catch it.  Your brain, when a ball is thrown, can predict where that ball will land.  It tries to do the same with a falling dollar bill, but the money will float and fall unpredicably, making it very hard to catch.  (Because this happens so fast, it also makes it hard to capture on camera - sorry.)

Finally, we studied our memories and where on our cortex the different brain functions are found.  To help with that, we made a brain hat.

Grey would have been a better color, but I didn't have grey paper.