The senses.

The sense of sight

Sight tells us about the color, size, and shape of things. Our eyes are our organs of sight.
The eyeball is round. It has three parts:
- The iris is the colored circle at the front of the eyeball. It can be green, brown, or blue.
- The pupil is the center of the eye. Light goes through the pupil into the eyeball.
- The retina is inside the eyeball. It receives light and sends it to the brain.

Protection of the eye

Some part of the eye are for protection:
- Eyebrows and eyelashes keep dust out of our eyes.
- Tear glands make tears that keep our eyes clean.
- Eyelids protect the eyeball from too much light.
- Cornea is a clear membrane that protects the front of the eye.
How does it work?

Light enters the eye through an

opening in the cornea called the
pupil. The light next passes through a
lens, which focuses the light on the
retina. The retina is the inner layer of
specialized cells found at the back of
the eye. These cells are called
photoreceptors because they detect
light and then send signals to the
brain. The brain interprets these
signals and forms  the images that
you see.

The sense of hearing

Our hearing allows us to hear sounds. Our ears are our organs of hearing.
The ears have three parts:
- The outer ear includes the ear canal.
- The middle ear includes the eardrum and three small bones.
- The inner ear includes the cochlea.

How does it work?

We hear sounds in the following way:
First, the outer ear captures sounds that travel as waves. The waves go through the ear canal to the
eardrum and make the eardrum vibrate.
Then the vibrations go to the small bones in the middle ear. One of these bones vibrates against the
cochlea.
Finally, cochlea change these vibrations into signals that are sent  to the brain.

The sense of taste

Taste buds are sensory organs that are found on your tongue and allow you to experience tastes
that are sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. How exactly do your taste buds work? Well, stick out your
tongue and look in the mirror. See all those bumps? Those are called papillae and most of them
contain taste buds. Taste buds have very sensitive microscopic hairs called microvilli. Those tiny
hairs send messages to the brain about how something tastes, so you know if it's sweet, sour,
bitter, or salty.
The sense of smell
Your sense of smell—like your sense of taste—is part of your chemosensory system, or the
chemical senses. Your ability to smell comes from specialized sensory cells, called olfactory
sensory neurons, which are found in a small patch of tissue high inside the nose. These cells
connect directly to the brain. Each olfactory neuron has one odor receptor. Microscopic molecules
released by substances around us—whether it’s coffee brewing or pine trees in a forest—stimulate
these receptors. There are more smells in the environment than there are receptors, and any given
molecule may stimulate a combination of receptors, creating a unique representation in the brain.
These representations are registered by the brain as a particular smell.

The sense of touch

Our sense of touch is controlled by a huge network of nerve endings and touch receptors in the skin
known as the somatosensory system. This system is responsible for all the sensations we feel –
cold, hot, smooth, rough, pressure, tickle, itch, pain, vibrations, and more. Within the
somatosensory system, there are four main types of receptors: mechanoreceptors,
thermoreceptors, pain receptors, and proprioceptors. These specialized receptors adapt to a
change in stimulus. A touch receptor is considered rapidly adapting if it responds to a change in
stimulus very quickly. Basically this means that it can sense right away when the skin is touching an
object and when it stops touching that object.

Systems of the human body

Musculoskeletal System (Locomotor System)
The skeletal and muscular systems move our bodies. We have bones, muscles, and joints under
our skin.
- Bones are hard. They don’t bend.
- Muscles are soft. They contract and relax.
- Joints connect bones.

The skeletal system

- THE SKELETON:
The bones in your body form the skeleton. The body has 206 bones. We have bones in all
parts of our bodies. They are in the head, the trunk, and the limbs.
The bones can be:
- Long – like the humerus.
- Short – like the vertebrae.

Functions of the skeletal system. The skeleton has three uses:

- It holds the body up. The bones in the spinal column do this.
- It protects the most delicate parts of the body, like the brain, the heart, and the lungs.
- It helps the body to move.

The muscular system

- Muscles are connected to the bones and they work together when we move.
 - Muscles contract and relax: When muscles contract they become shorter. When muscles
relax they return their usual shape.

There are more than 600 muscles in the muscular system:

- Head muscles: the jaws muscles open and close the mouth.
- Trunk muscles: we use the abdominals when we bend our trunk forward. We use the
intercostals and the diaphragm when we breathe.
- Limb muscles: we use the biceps and triceps when we bend and stretch our arms.
- We have other muscles in the stomach and the heart that are not connected to bones.

The circulatory system

The Circulatory System moves substances around  our bodies.

 FUNCTIONS:

- It  takes oxygen to all parts of the body.

- It also takes nutrients to all parts of the body.
- It helps remove harmful substances from the body. It takes carbon dioxide from the lungs
and waste substances to the excretory system.
- Blood circulates through tubes called blood vessels.

There are three kinds of blood vessels:

- Arteries: take blood from the heart to the rest of the body.
- Veins: take blood with little or no oxygen from the rest of the body to the heart.
- Capillaries: are thin tubes that connect arteries and veins.
Digestive system
Our bodies change food into nutrients in the Digestive System. This process is called digestion. The
Digestive System is a long tube that has different parts:
- Digestion begins in the mouth. Our teeth chew food. The food mixes with saliva, which
makes it easy to swallow.
- The food then passes through the pharynx and the esophagus down to the stomach.
- The stomach is the widest part of the digestive system. Food mixes in the stomach with
gastric juices.
- The small intestine  is a long thin tube. The liver and the pancreas send juices into the small
intestine, where digestion is completed.
- The nutrients then enter the blood.
- The large intestine is wider than the small intestine. It receives the food that we do not
digest. It uses water to change this food into feces. The feces then leave the body through
the anus.