PROJECT

MODEL-MAKING
Performance-Based Assessment
OBJECTIVE
You’ve read about circulation and respiration in the human body. Now you will have a chance to model the blood flow in the human heart! In this activity you will use the materials provided to build a model of the heart and lungs and to illustrate blood flow.

KNOW THE SCORE!
As you work through the activity, keep in mind that you will be earning a grade for the following:
• how well you work with the materials (30%)
• how well you know the correct structure of the heart and lungs and can illustrate the blood flow between chambers (40%)
• how well you complete the analysis (30%)

MATERIALS AND EQUIPMENT
• cardboard tubes, 2
• egg carton
• glue

SAFETY INFORMATION
• Use scissors safely.
• Pipe cleaners can have sharp ends.

PROCEDURE
1. Cut the egg carton apart so that you have 8 “cups.” Glue pairs of them together facing each other so that you have four chambers. Label two of the chambers “atrium” and two of the chambers “ventricle.” Label the atria “left” and “right.” Label the ventricles “left” and “right.”
2. Secure the chambers together with the pipe cleaners. Use red pipe cleaners to represent oxygen-rich blood and blue pipe cleaners to represent oxygen-poor blood. Show the blood flow into each atrium, between the atria and the ventricles, and out of each ventricle. Attach the atria and ventricles together with the white pipe cleaners.
3. What are blood vessels that carry blood away from the heart called?
4. What are blood vessels that carry blood toward the heart called?
5. Use the cardboard tubes to represent lungs. Connect them to the heart, again with the red and blue pipe cleaners in the correct places to represent blood vessels carrying oxygen-rich and oxygen-poor blood. Do arteries always carry oxygen-rich blood? Explain.


ANALYSIS
To answer the following questions, position your model so that it has the same orientation as the heart in your body.
6. Which side of the heart has oxygen-poor blood flowing through it?
7. Which side of the heart has oxygen-rich blood flowing through it?
8. Describe the pathway of blood going to and coming from the lungs.
9. Which of the chambers has the strongest pumping action, and why is this necessary?