Your body is a system, and Detroit tests it every day.
From runners on the Detroit Free Press Marathon course to children living near highways with asthma, human biology shows up in every Detroit neighborhood. This unit covers body systems, feedback loops that keep the body stable, and how the environment shapes health.
NGSS Standards Addressed High School
- HS-LS1-2 Develop and use a model to illustrate the hierarchical organization of interacting systems that provide specific functions within multicellular organisms.
- HS-LS1-3 Plan and conduct an investigation to provide evidence that feedback mechanisms maintain homeostasis.
- HS-LS1-7 Use a model to illustrate that cellular respiration is a chemical process in which bonds of food and oxygen molecules are broken and new bonds form, with a net transfer of energy.
NGSS Standards Addressed Middle School
- MS-LS1-3 Use argument supported by evidence for how the body is a system of interacting subsystems composed of groups of cells.
- MS-LS1-7 Develop a model to describe how food is rearranged through chemical reactions forming new molecules that support growth and release energy.
- MS-LS1-8 Gather and synthesize information that sensory receptors respond to stimuli by sending messages to the brain.
Bell-Ringers
Project one at the start of class. Each has a click-to-reveal discussion note. Try Project Mode for full-screen slides. More formats (Notice and Wonder, CER, Fact or Fiction, and more) are in the Bell-Ringer Bank.
During the Detroit Free Press Marathon, runners' heart rates rise and they sweat heavily. Describe the feedback loop that keeps body temperature near 37°C, naming the stimulus, receptor, control center, and effectors.
Discussion notes
Detroit has among the highest childhood asthma rates in Michigan. In an idealized model, airflow resistance scales as 1 / r⁴. If inflammation halves an airway's radius, by what factor does resistance rise, and why does that matter?
Discussion notes
Dust from old lead paint can enter a child's body and affect the developing nervous system. Which body systems are involved in the path from dust on a windowsill to the brain?
Discussion notes
When you run, your breathing and heart rate speed up. What do your muscle cells need more of, and how do the respiratory and circulatory systems deliver it?
Discussion notes
A loud concert at a Detroit venue can leave your ears ringing. Name the sense organ and the path sound takes to become a signal in the brain.
Discussion notes
After a meal from Eastern Market, how do your digestive and circulatory systems work together?
Discussion notes
Labs
Heart Rate & Recovery: Training for the Detroit Marathon
Students measure resting, exercise, and recovery heart and breathing rates (voluntary participation) and explain the results with feedback loops and cellular respiration.
Airway Model: Why a Little Narrowing Matters
Students time water draining through tubes of different widths to see how small changes in width cause large changes in flow, then connect the model to asthma.
Simulations
Airway Flow Explorer
Narrow a model airway and watch flow resistance, airflow, and the effect of an asthma trigger change with radius.
Launch Simulation →Fluid Pressure and Flow
PhET Interactive Simulations — explore how pipe width and pressure change flow, a model for blood vessels and airways.
Open Simulation →Neuron
PhET Interactive Simulations — see how a nerve cell sends an electrical signal, connecting to sensory receptors and the nervous system.
Open Simulation →MiEJScreen (Michigan EGLE)
Michigan's public environmental justice mapping tool — explore air-related and community indicators around Detroit neighborhoods.
Open Tool →Project Ideas
Homeostasis Feedback-Loop Poster
Build a labeled model of one feedback loop (body temperature, blood glucose, or hydration) with a stimulus, receptor, control center, effector, and response.
Asthma Trigger Reduction Plan
Using reliable public-health sources, design a plan to reduce asthma triggers at home or school and explain the biology behind each action.
Decibels and Hearing Safety Campaign
Measure sound levels at school events with a phone app (noting its limits), compare them with published exposure guidance, and design a hearing-protection campaign.
Body Systems Relay Model
Act out or illustrate how the digestive, circulatory, respiratory, and nervous systems pass materials and signals during a run.
Working Lung Model
Build a model lung from a bottle, balloons, and a straw, and explain what each part represents and how breathing works.
Reaction Time Experiment
Use a ruler-drop test to measure reaction time, graph class results, and trace the path of the signal through the nervous system.
Show What You Know: Exit Ticket
Three quick questions to close the lesson. Answers are hidden until you click. Use Project Mode to display them full-screen.
Describe the negative feedback loop that keeps a runner's body temperature near normal during a marathon.
Answer
If an airway's radius is cut in half, about how much does flow resistance increase in an idealized model, and why does that matter for asthma?
Answer
Trace how lead dust from old paint could move from a windowsill to a child's developing brain, naming the body systems involved.
Answer
Why do your breathing and heart rate increase when you run?
Answer
Name the sense organ and two parts involved when you hear music.
Answer
How do the digestive and circulatory systems work together after you eat?
Answer
Anatomy & Physiology, built on Detroit
The Detroit Free Press Marathon, which crosses the U.S.–Canada border, and the city's pro and school teams turn heart, lung, and muscle physiology into something students can see and feel.
Home conditions such as mold, pests, and lead paint dust affect asthma and development, linking body systems directly to Detroit's housing stock.
Detroit's music scene is a hearing-health lesson: understanding how the ear works shows why concert volume and listening habits matter.
Detroit's hospitals and Wayne State University research labs apply imaging, monitoring, and wearable technology to understand how body systems work and fail.
Who works on this in Detroit?
Real roles and organizations in and around the city where this science is part of the job.
Respiratory therapist
Treats patients with asthma, COPD, and other breathing problems using airway and ventilation therapies.
Public health nurse / community health worker
Helps families manage asthma triggers, lead exposure, nutrition, and preventive care.
Athletic trainer / sports physiologist
Monitors heart rate, hydration, and recovery to keep athletes performing safely.
Audiologist
Tests hearing, treats hearing loss, and teaches hearing protection to musicians and fans.
Biomedical researcher
Studies how body systems work and fail, and develops new treatments.