1. Human Body By: Joe Nantz

2. The Brain

3.  How does the brain work?  The brain is made up of 100 billion neurons.  There are a lot of parts that make up the brain. I am going to tell you about some of them.

4. Cerebrum  What is the biggest part of the brain?  85% of the brain is the cerebrum.  It helps us think.  It also controls voluntary muscles (e.g., swinging a bat).  It controls our short and long term memory.  It has two halves.

5. Cerebellum  What part of the brain helps us have balance?  It is 1/8 the size of the cerebrum.  It controls balance, movement, and coordination.

6. Brain Stem  What part of the brain helps us breath?  The brain stem helps us do different activities.  It also helps with breathing air, digesting food, and circulating blood.  It controls our involuntary muscles (e.g., pumping blood to our heart when running).

7. Pituitary Gland  How do some people grow faster than others?  It is very small. It is about the size of a pea.  It releases hormones that help us grow.  It keeps our metabolism going so we stay alive.

8. Hypothalamus  What part of the brain controls our body temperature?  It’s our brains thermostat.  It keeps our body at 98.6 Fahrenheit when we are healthy.  When we are hot we sweat.  When we are cold we start to shiver.

9. Spinal Cord  What makes our spinal cord so important?  It’s has a long bundle of nerves in our spinal cord.  It sends messages from our brain to our body.  It helps us learn how to snow board because of the neurons.

10. Emotions  Why do we have emotions?  Our brain has cells on each side called the amygdala (uh-mig-duh-luh).  The area looks like an almond.  It’s normal to feel all kinds of emotions.

11. Fun Facts  What can we do to keep our brain healthy?  Eat healthy.  Exercise.  Wear a helmet.  Don’t drink alcohol or do drugs.  Challenge your brain.

12. The Lungs

13. The Lungs The Lungs  What is the organ that helps us breathe?  The lungs are the biggest organs in the human body.  The lungs are not the same size. The lung on the left side is smaller than the one on the right side.  Left lung is smaller, where our heart is.  They are protected by our rib cage. We have 12 sets of ribs.

14. Heart

15. The Heart  What muscle in our body is about the size of your fist?  The heart is a muscle.  One way we know our heart is working is by our pulse.  The places to find our pulse is on our wrist and neck.  If we are resting our pulse will be between 70 and 100 beats per minute.

16. The Kidney

17. The Kidneys  What do the kidneys do?  It produces hormones that control blood pressure, levels of water, salts, and minerals in our body.  They help get waste out of our blood.  The waste gets out of our body when we urinate.  We have two kidneys.

18. Bones

19. Bones  What do bones do?  Bones provide support, protection, and movement for our body.  Every organ in our body is protected by our bones.  Bones support our body and help us stand up.  Calcium makes our bones strong.

20. Bibliography  Parker, Steven. Human Body. New York: NY, DK Publishing, Inc,1993.  Ballard, Carol. The Skeleton and Muscular System. Austin: TX, Raintree Steck-Vaughn Publishers,1998.  Woodworth, Karen. “Amazon.ca.” May, 2004, January 2010  Kids Health.org