The heart!

The heart is nothing more than a pumping system to keep the body alive, human or otherwise. We know that now because of science, we learnt all about it. However back in times before ours, they believed the heart was where emotions came from, that the heart was the centre of the body so to speak. That is one of the reasons why when the Egyptians mummified bodies, the heart was left in as it was needed in the afterlife to live.

Now we know different, it’s the brain that controls emotions, controls the body, where all our knowledge is found. The heart simply pumps blood though the body. From the moment the heart is formed enough to beat, it continues to do it until the day we die. In an average lifespan, the heart beats over two and a half billion times, which is quite amazing for an organ the size of your fist. (The Franklin Institute, 2009) 

The heart I made up of four chamber, the left and right atria and the left and right ventricle. Each side of the heart has a valve to stop the blood from filling the chamber it just entered from. (The Franklin Institute, 2009) The aorta artery is attached to the left ventricle chamber, this chamber is the one to contract the most as it has to force the blood out of the chamber, through the aorta and be able to push the blood all the way around the body. At the beginning of the aorta is where you will find the highest amount of pressure. (Adam’s lecture notes, 9/3/09)

As the blood travels the body, it loses the oxygen it has been transporting and picks up Carbon Dioxide. Travelling through the Vena Eava, the deoxygenated blood returns to the heart, entering the right atrium, the chamber contracts and pushes it into the right ventricle where it then is forced into the pulmonary artery. This artery will transport the deoxygenated blood into the lung where it loses the Co2 and picks up o2. Once the blood is full of oxygen once more, it travels through the pulmonary vein and into the left atrium where it is pushed into the left ventricle where the cycle begins. (Adam’s lecture notes, 9/3/09) (The Franklin Institute, 2009)

The Franklin Institute has a great site on the heart that gives you lots of details but not hard to understand detail, I think this would be a great site for high schoolers to visit.

The Franklin Institute, ‘The human heart’, viewed 29/03/09, http://www.fi.edu/learn/heart/index.html 

Adam’s Lecture notes, week of the 9/3/09, community based science, Victoria university Footscray park.