Learning about the Eye

We are continuing to learn about the nervous system focusing now on the five senses.  First we have been learning about the eye and found out it is part of the peripheral nervous system

we watched several you tube videos and looked at several books that went over the parts of the eye and how it works

I brought out the lenses I have used in the past to remind the kids what a convex and concave lens are and discuss the reasons why people might need glasses

We pulled out our old pin hole camera and reviewed how it works and why it works this way and how it is similar to the eye

Next we took a look at a book of optical illusions and discussed why our eye might see things differently 

can you find the dog

the two profile faces

Kids had fun with this 

Next we watched several videos on how to dissect a Cow's eye.

Then I pulled out our cow's eye and we got started

kids examining the eye

Firedrake got brave this time and wanted to cut off the fat and muscle surrounding the eye

she found the optic nerve

cutting the cornea of, it was tougher in texture than we thought it would be!

examining the lens and iris...the only difference between a human iris and a cows iris is the cow iris is more oval in shape while a human iris is round

and taking it apart

MarioFan examining the lens... it was quite hard 

the kids used the cow's lens as a magnifying glass and despite it being a little cloudy it did work!

Next we extracted the vitreous humor the clear gel from the eye and located the retina the cream color  on top of the clear gel

the retina is attached to the optic nerve.  the human eye is black at the back of the eye to help with light absorption but a cow's eye has Tactum which makes their eyes shine at night which is the same for cats...it is the mostly blue/green multi color background in the eye

Kids labels all the parts of the eye

Showing Dad and explaining all the parts of the eye.  My husband is a little queasy when it comes to the dissections but he hides it pretty well for the kids:)

We are moving on to learning about the other senses, hearing, taste, touch and smell.  I will post some of the experiments we do for these senses soon!