InThinking Revision Sites

INTHINKING REVISION SITES

Own your learning

Why not also try our independent learning self-study & revision websites for students?

We currenly offer the following DP Sites: Biology, Chemistry, English A Lang & Lit, Maths A&A, Maths A&I, Physics, Spanish B

"The site is great for revising the basic understandings of each topic quickly. Especially since you are able to test yourself at the end of each page and easily see where yo need to improve."

"It is life saving... I am passing IB because of this site!"

Basic (limited access) subscriptions are FREE. Check them out at:

www.StudyIB.net

Digestion & Enzymes Intro

  • /
  • SL Core /
  • Humans Activities for Learning/
  • Digestion & Enzymes Intro

Introductory activities for SL Digestion.

This lesson begins with an experiment to model the hydrolysis of starch by amylase and the absorption of simple sugars using visking tubing. While students wait for diffusion there is an activity to use a textbook, Biodigital human or Zygote body as a research tool to answer some simple questions about the digestive system. The lesson finishes with a collaborative diagram drawing activity.

Lesson Description

Guiding Questions

What do we already know about digestion?

Why do we do digestion?

What are macromolecules and enzymes?

Activity 1 Practical activity to investigate the need for digestion.

Carry out the experiment on the Experiment to model simple digestion and absorption. worksheet below. This experiment takes time to progress so while waiting there is time for a few questions and Activity 2, 'The structure of the Digestive System'

Activity 2: Brainstorm / Research Activity - The structure of the digestive system

Students work together using their memories and some research for text book diagrams or text to construct a large diagram of the digestive system.  The images in Zygotebody - 3D view of the human body may also be helpful.

Produce a large (A3 size or bigger), annotated diagram of the digestive system. Include the following structures -

  • mouth,
  • esophagus,
  • stomach,
  • small intestines
  • large intestine,
  • anus,
  • liver,
  • pancreas and
  • gall bladder.

Open this next section to see an overview of the digestive system from BioDigital Human - Excellent detailed 3D viewer of the human body

Click the eye -->

Teachers notes

The experiment is a good beginning in this lesson which first asks the question Why do we need to digest food molecules. IB students often know something about the structure and function of the digestive system but they knowledge is fragmented and the big picture is sometimes unclear. This lesson hopefully will give students a clearer idea of the role of the digestive system and its enzymes, as well as a revision of its structure.

Be careful using student saliva. Although the risks can be minimised it is something that has been banned by some school authorities. Amylase enzymes, especially with a little added salt work well.

Biodigital Human and Zygote body are great resources but they are not strictly necessary for the second activity. They could make part of a homework task. Screen shots of different structures could be built into a report which annotated different parts of the digestive system.

A text book as a research tool in the second activity works well.