Inside the Torso
NGSS MS-LS1-3 ยท HS-LS1-2
Read the standards: MS-LS1-3, HS-LS1-2
Lift the skin, muscles, ribs, and organs off a human torso piece by piece, then run it from rest to a sprint and watch the heart, lungs, and gut respond.
About This Interactive
What do students do?
Students take a human torso apart one piece at a time. They drag the skin onto a dissection tray, then the chest and belly muscles, the breastbone, and both halves of the rib cage, until the heart, lungs, liver, stomach, intestines, and kidneys are in reach, 23 pieces in all. Tapping any piece opens a card with its everyday and anatomical names, its organ system, its job, and its ladder from cells to tissue to organ to system, and the heart's card opens a 3D heart students can spin. Then the body goes to work. One slider runs it from rest to an all-out sprint, and the readout shows the heart rate climbing from about 65 to 195 beats a minute while breathing rises from 12 to 45 breaths. The blood flow graph shows where the extra blood goes, with the muscles' share growing from under one liter a minute to more than 16 while the digestive organs give part of theirs up. A timed challenge scatters every piece onto the tray so students can rebuild the torso from memory.
What does it cover?
NGSS MS-LS1-3 at the middle school level: use argument supported by evidence for how the body is a system of interacting subsystems composed of groups of cells. NGSS HS-LS1-2 at the high school level: develop and use a model to illustrate the hierarchical organization of interacting systems that provide specific functions within multicellular organisms. The Level toggle swaps the worksheet, the vocabulary, and the readout. Middle schoolers build claims from heart rate, breathing, and blood flow evidence, and high schoolers add stroke volume, cardiac output, tidal volume, and oxygen use, then work out the multiplication behind cardiac output at rest and at a sprint. The body's numbers follow textbook exercise physiology, so every reading students record is a realistic one. Key vocabulary: organ system, circulatory system, respiratory system, peristalsis, cardiac output, stroke volume, minute ventilation.
How long does it take?
20 to 30 minutes for either quick version. The full middle school lesson is one 50 minute class that starts with students counting their own pulse and breaths before and after jumping jacks; the full high school lesson is one 90 minute block built around a ninety second step-up trial that students run on their own bodies.
What does it run on?
Every SciMinis interactive runs free in the browser with nothing to install and no accounts, on Chromebooks, laptops, tablets, and phones. It's fully bilingual: one tap switches the whole interactive, worksheet included, between English and Spanish.
What do teachers get?
Each interactive ships with vocabulary flashcards, a ten-question worksheet students can export as a PDF, and complete NGSS-aligned lesson plans: a 20 to 30 minute quick version and a full timed 5E lesson. The lesson plans and answer key stay behind a free teacher password, so students can't peek.