In Year 6, we love hands-on experiences. With our new Science topic having us explore the circulatory system, we thought it would be useful to see how the heart functions close up. Using a pig’s heart, which is very similar to that of a human, we traced the flow of blood through it. Our pupils could see the vena cava which takes deoxygenated blood into the heart from various parts of the body. Exploring the chambers, they could see the right atrium and the right ventricle where the blood passes through before it is pumped out of the pulmonary artery to the lungs so the blood can be filled with oxygen again. We noticed that the left side was significantly bigger and learned that this is because the fresh, oxygenated blood enters the left side via the pulmonary vein. Here, it flows into the left atrium then left ventricle before shooting the oxygen-rich blood through the aorta to the rest of the body.

Our learning experience proved a success with our pupils!