Module 1

Module 1—The Nervous System

Big Picture

 

You are at a gathering with your friends when, from across the room, you notice a girl who is new to your school. You can see her smile and can hear her laughter from across the room. You decide that you want to forget about your shyness and welcome her to your school, so you walk across the room to say “hi.” You notice that your heart is pounding, you’re breathing fast, and your hands are clammy. You are introduced and you shake hands. Without thinking, you yank your hand away from the handshake that’s hurting your sprained finger. You’re so embarrassed! Your body is communicating even if you don’t want it to! You stammer out a “hello” and she says “hello” back. You can see from her body language that she is nervous as well. Whether you end up with a new friend will ultimately be up to how you communicate, both intentionally and unintentionally.

 

While you may have felt like your nervous system was not working correctly because you could not control what your body was communicating, it was, in fact, responding and working to regain homeostasis, the balance necessary for the health and efficient function of your systems. The unconscious division of your peripheral nervous system brought your heart rate back to normal. You took a deep breath and, to some extent, controlled some of your body’s homeostatic responses.

 

In Module 1 you will learn about the many ways your nervous system communicates with your body to speed you up, slow you down, and establish homeostasis.

 

You may have heard of diseases, such as multiple sclerosis or Alzheimer’s disease, where the nervous system is not in homeostasis and system health has been compromised. In this module you will examine several diseases where communication in the nervous system has been interrupted.
 
In this module you will explore how the body communicates through the nervous system. To do this, you will need to explore the following focusing questions:

• How is the nervous system organized? How do its parts communicate with one another? What could interrupt this communication?

• What are the main structures and functions of the brain? How does the brain establish communication? What happens when this communication is interrupted?

• What are the main features of the spinal cord? What role does the spinal cord play in the communication and coordination of the rest of the body?

• What are the features of the building blocks of the nervous system?

• What information about the environment do the sensations of touch, smell, and taste communicate to the nervous system in order to maintain homeostasis?

• What are the major parts of the eye? How do they function? How do they support the integrated act of seeing?

• What are the major parts of the ear that facilitate your response to sound and your ability to maintain balance within the changing environment?

• How does the structure of a neuron facilitate the reception and transmission of a nerve impulse to the synaptic gap?

• What are the events in the synaptic gap that affect how neurons communicate with each other?

You have been introduced to the focusing questions for this module. Each lesson will restate these focusing questions to guide your study. To help you organize the concepts of this module, and to provide you with a potential aid for review, you may choose to download the Module 1 Concept Organizer. Fill in this concept organizer with the ideas that you master as you work through each lesson, or prepare the organizer when you have completed Module 1. You can use keywords, point form, or any amount of detail that meets your needs. You may choose to work from the file on your computer, print the document and work from the paper copy, or copy the outline onto a large sheet of poster paper. After you have prepared your mind map, you may wish to check your work with the concept organizer provided in the Module Summary. The concept organizer provided outlines some of the key topics that you should include in each lesson of your concept organizer. This is a great tool to review and use for study purposes, but using this organizer is completely your choice.

 

In the Module Assessment for Module 1, you will complete a detailed study of Alzheimer’s disease. In each lesson of Module 1, you will consider how that lesson’s topic could be related to the cause or symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. You will complete some work towards the Module Assessment project in each lesson. For more details about the Module Assessment and the evaluation criteria, visit the Module Summary and Assessment section.

Biology 30 Learn EveryWare © 2009 Alberta Education