Mock hospital teaching body systems

This is an activity I call “When Gary Met Sally”. I use this with Year 8 science classes to teach body systems. The context of the task is a middle aged man named “Gary” who has let himself go a little bit. He has met a lovely lady by the name of “Sally” and is consequently motivated to improve his health.

In this activity the classroom is set up as a mock hospital clinic. Students are assigned roles as specialists and use fact sheets and equipment such as stethoscopes and blood pressure monitors to assess Gary’s health and provide a series of recommendations to him about how he can improve his health. The task is scaffolded and differentiated at multiple levels from support to extension students. Each worksheet contains “must do” and “going deeper” tasks so students can choose the level at which they want to work. The files include fact sheets and instructions, as well as student worksheets. The task can be run over a number of sequential lessons and is a wonderful and engaging activity that students love completing. It is ideal for an end of unit consolidation task and could also be used as a summative assessment task.

When running this task in class I typically print one set of the worksheets per group. The digestive, circulatory and respiratory system worksheets are placed in folders and assigned to students in each group - giving the student their speciality. They students are given time to complete their activities according to their speciality. They then work together as a group to complete 1 patient profile for Gary. This requires each student to teach the others in their group about the body system they were assigned. They consolidate the contributions of each group member and present the results of their investigation to the class. A PPT presentation is also included that use to set up and explain the task to my class.