Name: Cherry Yang Date:

Student Exploration: Digestive System

Vocabulary: absorption, amino acid, carbohydrate, chemical digestion, chyme, complex carbohydrate,
digestion, digestive system, elimination, enzyme, fat, fatty acid, fiber, food calorie, mechanical digestion,
monoglyceride, nutrient, peristalsis, protein, starch, sugar, villus

Prior Knowledge Questions (Do these BEFORE using the Gizmo.)

1. Why do we need to eat food? Food provide nutrients and energy that is
needed for body functions, including being
able to perform physical activities to regular
organ functions

2. How do you think our bodies break food down Food goes through our digestive system,
into useful nutrients? first we chew to break it down into smaller
pieces, then the stomach digest it more
using chemicals and it moves along our
intestines and gets absorbed.

Gizmo Warm-up
The digestive system is a group of organs that does three things:
● First, the digestive system breaks food down into useful
nutrients, a process called digestion.
● Next, the nutrients move into the bloodstream, a process
called absorption.
● Finally, the leftover waste is removed from the body, a process
called elimination.

With the Digestive System Gizmo, you can arrange the organs of the
digestive system any way you like. To begin, look at the organs on the LARGE ORGANS tab. Place your
cursor over each organ to learn more about it.

1. Which organs allow nutrients to be absorbed? The small intestine and the large intestine
are used to absorb food.

2. Which organ stores and compacts waste

The rectum/anus compacts waste.
before it is eliminated?

3. Which two organs help to break food down The mouth and the stomach breaks down
mechanically? food mechanically

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 Activity A:
Get the Gizmo ready:
Build a digestive ● If necessary, click Clear screen.
system

Goal: Design your own digestive system.

1. Explore: Read the descriptions of the large organs, as well as those of the small organs on the next tab. Fill
in the names of the organs that serve the functions listed below:

Large intestines This organ absorbs water and vitamin K from digested food.

Pancreas This organ produces enzymes that break down nutrients.

Capillaries These tiny blood vessels transport absorbed nutrients.

Parietal cells These cells produce hydrochloric acid (HCl).

Chief cells These cells produce pepsin, which breaks down proteins.

2. Build: Now it is time to design and build your own digestive system! Start with the LARGE ORGANS tab to

to the large organs to complete your system. 📷

build a basic system, starting with the Mouth/pharynx. Next, attach organs from the SMALL ORGANS tab
Open the Tools menu and click Screenshot. Right-click
the image, choose Copy Image, and paste the image below.

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3. Predict: How well do you think your system will digest food? Explain your reasoning.

I think it would digest food fairly well, the salivary gland to help food to get through the
mouth and pharynx while breaking down complex carbohydrates to sugars. Then the food
moves to the stomach where the chief cells and the parietal cells are helping to produce
pepsin to break down more. Then moving to the small intestine more breakdown of things
that has not been broken down yet are broken down with the help of the pancreas and the
gallbladder. The Capillaries and lymphatic vessels are here to collect these nutrients and
water. When the fats are completely broken down and absorbed it moves to the large
intestines and more absorption happens. During the process through all the intestines,
capillaries are there to absorb nutrients until the anus, where excess food are gone to
waste.

4. Prepare: Select the FOOD tab. The energy we get from food is measured in food calories (Calories). Each
Calorie is equal to 4,184 joules of energy. Calories are found in the three main nutrients in food:
carbohydrates (sugars and starches), proteins, and fats.

Drag the Cheeseburger above the mouth in your digestive system. How many Calories in the
cheeseburger come from carbohydrates, proteins, and fats?

Carbohydrate Protein
226 140 Fat Calories: 360
Calories: Calories:

5. Run the Gizmo: Click Play ( ), and observe the food moving through the digestive system. The muscular
contractions that push food through the system are called peristalsis. When food has finished passing
through the system, you will see a message.

A. What percentage of Calories were absorbed by your system? 88.46%

B. What percentage of water was absorbed? 94.69%

C. Based on these results, how well do you think this digestive system worked?
Explain.

It worked very well, because it is impossible to absorb everything. If everything is

absorbed humans would not have bodily waste.

6. Revise: Click Reset ( ). Rearrange the organs of your system to try to improve your results. Describe
how you changed your system below.
I changed the organs so that the pancreas, which breaks down a large amount of different substances,
came first. I also moved the lymphatic vessels because it could be easier to absorb fat when it is all
broken down properly. I also moved the gallbladder to the intersection between the small and large
intestines, as I want the nutrients to be absorbed first then to break down the more complex ones.
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7. Test: Click Play or Fastplay ( ). List the results below.

Did the system Percentage of Calories Percentage of

No 58.07 94.69
improve? absorbed: water absorbed:

8. Explain: If your system improved, why do you think this was so?

The system did not improve, from this I learned that it is important to let everything break
down first then to absorb, and to absorb these nutrients using lymphatic all from the small
intestines instead of the large.

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 Activity B: Get the Gizmo ready:

Mechanical and ● Click Reset and Clear screen.

chemical ● Build a system with a Mouth, Salivary
digestion gland, Esophagus, Pancreas, and Rectum.

Introduction: Before nutrients are absorbed, they must be broken down to their simplest components. Teeth
and muscular contractions in the stomach break food down into smaller particles, a process called mechanical
digestion. In the meantime, powerful chemicals break down food in a process called chemical digestion.

Question: How are nutrients broken down in your digestive system?

1. Set up the Gizmo: Check that the current digestive system has a mouth, salivary gland, esophagus,
pancreas, and rectum, as shown above. From the FOOD tab, drag the Baked potato to the mouth. A
potato mostly consists of complex carbohydrates, such as starch.

A. View the ANALYSIS tab. What is the initial value of complex carbohydrates? 228

B. Click Play or Fastplay. What is the final value of complex carbohydrates? 196.68

C. How many Calories of complex carbohydrates were converted to sugars? 31.32

Explain how you know below.

The pancreas is in charged of the break down of fat, so a fairly small amount was
converted into sugars.

The pancreas produces three digestive enzymes: Amylase breaks down complex carbohydrates into
simple carbohydrates (sugars), trypsin breaks down proteins into amino acids, and lipase breaks down
fats into fatty acids and monoglycerides.

2. Experiment: Click Reset. Move the Rectum, Esophagus, and

Pancreas to the right and insert the Stomach so that the system
looks like the image at right. Click Play/Fastplay.

A. After digestion is complete, what is the value 22.26

of complex carbohydrates?

B. How many Calories of complex 205.74

carbohydrates were converted to sugars?

C. Why do you think the results were different?

The stomach breaks down the food more, therefore the chemicals from the
pancreas could break the complex carbohydrate more easily.

The muscular walls of the stomach churn food, transforming food chunks into a thick liquid called chyme.
The nutrients in chyme break down more easily because they are exposed to digestive enzymes rather
than hidden in food chunks.

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3. Observe: Click Reset. Drag the Steamed tofu above the mouth. The Calories in tofu mostly come from
proteins and fat. We will look at fat digestion first.

A. What is the initial number of fat 90

Calories?

B. Click Play. How many fat Calories were converted to fatty 27

acids?

4. Experiment: Click Reset. Move the Pancreas one space to the right (still attached to the esophagus).
Place the Gallbladder on the esophagus to the left of the pancreas. Click Play.

A. How many fat Calories were converted to fatty acids in 86.36

this situation?

B. How did adding the gallbladder affect fat digestion? Tripled the amount of fat
converted because the
gallbladder stores bile that
can further breakdown large
fat globules, which becomes
easier to breakdown with the
digestive enzymes from the
pancreas.

Fat molecules can be difficult to break down because large fat droplets do not mix well with water-based
enzymes such as lipase. For lipase to work, it helps if the fat is emulsified into tiny droplets. This is done
with the help of bile, which is stored in the gallbladder.

5. Observe: Now look at the results for proteins. (Do not press Reset yet.) Proteins are complex molecules
formed from long chains of amino acids.

How many of the original 72 protein Calories were converted to amino acids? 1.44

6. Experiment: Click Reset. The process of protein digestion is helped by the enzyme pepsin.

A. Look at the remaining small organs. Which ones produce Chief cells
pepsin?

Add these cells to the stomach.

B. Click Play. How much protein is converted to amino acids now? 42.91

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 C. Click Reset. Pepsin works best in an acidic environment. Which Parietal cells
of the remaining small organs produces an acid?

Add these to the stomach.

D. Click Play. How much protein is converted to amino acids now? 69.87

7. Explain: How do mechanical and chemical digestion work together to break down food?

Mechanical digestion breaks down food into smaller pieces so that the chemicals can easily mix
with these small pieces to further break down the food into simpler nutrients that can be
absorbed by the body

Activity C: Get the Gizmo ready:

Absorption ● Click Reset and Clear screen.

Introduction: Digesting nutrients into simple carbohydrates, amino acids, and fatty acids is important, but it
doesn’t matter unless the nutrients get into the bloodstream to feed body cells. This process is called
absorption.

Question: How are nutrients absorbed?

1. Observe: Look through the descriptions of the large and small organs.

A. Which of the large organs allow nutrients and water to Large and small intestines
pass through their walls?

B. Which of the small organs transport absorbed capillaries

nutrients to the bloodstream?

2. Set up the Gizmo: Create the digestive system shown. The small intestine has three parts: the duodenum
(attached to the stomach), the jejunum (the middle portion), and the ilium (attached to the large intestine).
Drag the Pecan pie to the mouth.

Test each of the scenarios below. For each setup, record the nutrients that are absorbed by the system.
(Be sure to look at the “Absorbed” row of the Analysis table.)

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 Amino Fatty
Scenario Sugars Water
acids acids
Capillaries attached to the small intestine
272.16 21.43 0 18.9
segments only
Capillaries attached to the large intestine
4.8 0 0 18
only
Lymphatic vessels attached to the small
0 0 174.8 0
intestine segments only (no capillaries)
Lymphatic vessels attached to the large
0 0 0 0
intestine only (no capillaries)

3. Analyze: Examine the results of your four experiments.

A. Which nutrients were absorbed by capillaries in the small intestine?

In the small intestine, capillaries absorbed sugars, amino acids, and water

B. Which nutrients were absorbed by capillaries in the large intestine?

In the large intestine, capillaries absorbed a small amount of sugar and water, but 0.9
grams less than when in the small intestines.

Bacteria in the large intestine break down some types of fiber—a difficult to digest
complex carbohydrate—into sugars that are absorbed in the large intestine.

C. Which nutrient was absorbed by small intestine lymphatic vessels? Fatty acids

D. Did lymphatic vessels absorb anything from the large intestine? nothing

4. Draw conclusions: Based on your experiments, where should the capillaries and lymphatic vessels be
placed to maximize the absorption of nutrients from food?

Capillaries: On all segments of the small intestine as well as the large intestines.

Lymphatic vessels: Only needed on the small intestine.

5. Investigate: Click Reset. From the FOOD tab, drag the Apple to the work area to view its
Nutritional Facts. What nutrient makes up most of an apple’s Calories? water

6. Challenge: Using a total of only five organs, design a digestive system that can absorb the maximum
number of Calories from the apple. Describe your system below.

The system starts with the mouth and pharynx with the salivary gland attached, the

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 pharynx is directly attached to the jejunum/ileum. The pancreas is attached to the small
intestine and capillaries are attached as well to collect nutrients.

7. Test: Click Play.

What percentage of Calories did your system absorb? 71.5 percent

8. Explore: Use the Gizmo to determine how absorption of water affects the texture of the stool (poop) that is
produced by the digestive system. What do you conclude?

The more water the system absorbs, the less liquid the stool is, while the less water the
system absorbs, the more liquid the stool is.

Activity D: Get the Gizmo ready:

Human digestion ● Click Reset and Clear screen.

Introduction: Now that you have explored a model of human digestion, it is time to apply what you have
learned to the real human digestive system.

Goal: Describe the human digestive system.

1. Label

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2. Think and discuss: Why is it important that the mouth and stomach are near the start of the digestive
system?

Because the mechanical digestion by cutting food into smaller pieces makes it easier for
the esophagus to pass down, the stomach to digest, and the rest of the system to absorb
the nutrients. The purpose of the stomach to mechanically digest food is the same, to
prepare the small intestine and large intestine to digest food.

3. Match: Match each structure, chemical, or process to its function.

K Amylase A. Upper section of the small intestine

E Peristalsis B. Muscular tube connecting the throat and stomach

A Duodenum C. Organ that produces a variety of digestive enzymes

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 I Lymphatic vessel D. Chemical that breaks up large fat droplets

G Anus E. Muscular contractions that push food through the digestive system

J Large intestine F. Enzyme that starts to digest proteins in the stomach

B Esophagus G. Opening through which wastes are eliminated

F Pepsin H. Produces hydrochloric acid in the stomach

C Pancreas I. Transports absorbed fatty acids to the bloodstream

H Parietal cell J. Organ that absorbs water and vitamin K

D Bile K. Enzyme that breaks down starches into simple carbohydrates

4. Infer: The diagram at right shows part of a villus. A villus is a tiny, fingerlike
projection in the wall of the small intestine. The small intestine contains millions of
villi.

A. What are the names of the vessels labeled A and B in the diagram?

A is the lacteal, and B the blood capillary

B. What do you think is the function of a villus?

The villi expands the surface area of the small intestine to absorb
nutrients into the blood vessels

5. Evaluate: In humans, the small intestine can be over 8 meters (26 feet) long. Why do you think this organ is
so long?

It adds more time for food to be in the body and increases the time the nutrients stay in
the body. These two factors help the body to absorb as much nutrients as possible from
the food we ate so humans can use it to function.

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