Heart Dissection - Biology

Yesterday in Biology we talked about the heart and what it does as well as dissecting a pig's heart. We started off by talking about the things the heart does to keep you alive. The heart basically pumps the blood around the body to try and deliver the entry and nutrients to the right cells. Your heart pumps to keep the blood pumping and flowing for if it didn't then your blood would be still and you wouldn't be able to get the oxygen and nutrients to the right cells. When your blood pumps it goes around to the lungs to collect the oxygen while making its way around to get the nutrients from the digestive system to send them down to the different cells that need them. The right side of your heart receives oxygen-poor blood from your veins and pumps it to your lungs, where it collects the oxygen and replaces it with the unwanted carbon-dioxide. The left side of your heart receives oxygen-rich blood from your lungs and pumps it through the arteries to the rest of your body.

When we were dissecting the heart we started by using the scalpel and cutting the left side gently being careful not to cut ourselves. The left side was the thickest side of the heart for it has a lot more muscle. The left side of the heart is thickest for it has to push the blood out more forcefully because it has further to go but it also has to defy gravity when it travels up your body. Then we cut the right side of the heart and found it to be the thinnest side of the heart. The right side was thinner because it had less muscle surrounding it. The right side pumps the blood the lungs which are right next to it which makes it pump the blood with less force then they do with the left. After that, we split it straight down the middle and started playing around with it while learning more about how it works.