Do You Have the Strength?
Students squeeze a tennis ball to model the strength of the human heartCopyright Wikimedia Commons http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/Tennis_ball_in_hand_-_2011_Japan_Open.jpg%601q1%60q%601
In this activity, students squeeze a tennis ball to demonstrate the strength of the human heart. Working in teams, they think of ways to keep the heart beating if the natural mechanism were to fail. The goal of this activity is to get students to understand the strength and resilience of the heart.
Engineers design instruments to help (or replace) the heart when something goes wrong. For example, they have designed tiny stents (a wire mesh tube used to prop open an artery during an angioplasty) to place in clogged arteries, they have developed a mechanical heart, and they have designed replacements for veins and heart valves. Engineers also develop surgical equipment and medical equipment to locate and monitor heart rates. Aerospace engineers are working to combat the loss of heart muscle in space. These engineers are trying to counter the microgravity affects by developing exercise equipment (treadmills, bicycles, etc.) for astronauts to keep their hearts healthy while traveling in space (astronauts usually work out at least two hours a day).
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Explain the heart as a pump.
- Use data analysis and graphing to describe and model the strength of the heart.
- Describe engineers as creating devices to keep the heart strong and functioning.