Have a Heart?

Alas, we are still without a camera but I will not let that stop me from blogging any longer.

Picture this . . . a week old beef heart in the refrigerator . . . a towel spread on the floor (a cow heart is HUGE) . . . knives . . . microscope . . .  and two fascinated children.

The heart was slightly, shall we say, discolored from its wait in the fridge.  It also had a very interesting odor :)  We could not tell if the odor was due to age, or just to the fact that is was an organ.

We successfully, I think, identified all of the main parts of the heart.  The kids took turns describing the flow of blood into the right atrium through the vena cava, into the right ventricle and out through the pulmonary artery to the lungs to absorb oxygen, then back into the heart through the pulmonary veins into the left atrium, through to the left ventricle and out through the aorta to take oxygen to the rest of the body!  They also found some strange wiggly parts that turned out to be chordae tendinae and papillary muscles.  I can say with confidence that the kids will not forget this for quite awhile :)

They completed lab reports and have pieces of each part waiting for examination under the microscope!