This unit was mainly about bones, and where they are and how they work and what they do. During this unit we did a few labs, one of which we went from station to station learning the placement of bones and some of there functions and weather they are flat, long or short. My favorite lab was the owl pellet lab where we went through an owls throw up and picked out little bones and placed them in shape to make it into the rodent or bird that the owl ate. The bones were not broken because the owl does not chew its food it just swallows it. Main topics we learned about was the skeletal system, learning that it consist of joints, bones, cartilage, and ligaments. Along with the types of bone cells, Osteocytes which are mature bone cells, bone cells forming which are osteoblast and osteoclast which are bone destroying cells.  Sthe bone types are long bones, short bones, flat bones and irregular bones. Another big topic was disorders of the skeletal system which was mainly spine problems such as scoliosis: abnormal curvature of spine, Kyphosis: spine looks normal but you may develop a hump. Lordosis:Excess curvature of lumbar spine.  My goals in this class are going well, my goal was to maintain a B average or higher and I have about a 86% right now. And for my goal to work really hard in football, that is going really well for me because I just got accepted to play for a travel 7 on 7 team with some of the best players in the bay area.

Owl pellet lab

In this lab we had owl pellets (owl throw up) and disected through them. We picked out the fur, and the bones separately. We had to be very careful because the little bones were fragile. Once we picked the bones out we had to identify what kind of animal it was depending on its bone types. Ours was a rodent not a bird. It was a pocket gopher. We knew because of the tail bone and the skull and teeth. The skull length was between 30-42 mm. The evidence from the packet and our picture shows us that the fact we had a pocket gopher holds true. The human skeleton and the pocket gopher skeleton are similar because they both have a skull. The ribs are similar because of the last two being floating ribs. Humans and rodents also share the Femur, which is the big thigh leg bone. There were also differences in bones,such as the phalanges on the pocket ghoper had claws unlike human phalanges. The rodents have the two front teeth which are sharp for cathing prey called incisors. The rodent also has a much longer tail bone than the one bone involved in the human.