Muscles needed for movement
Description
Skeletons can be remarkably flexible but muscles are needed to move them. Various sports competitors and athletes are seen in action using their muscles. Muscles are used every time we move. There are more than 600 muscles in the human body. Muscles are attached to the bone by tendons and work in pairs to allow for smooth movement. To move a joint, one muscle contracts while the other muscle relaxes and becomes longer.
Classroom Ideas
Students could learn key vocabulary from the clip such as muscle, skeleton, contract and relax. Using a drama activity, students should think of corresponding actions for each word and act them out when the word is called out. After watching the clip students could undertake a range of activities, such as walking, playing sport, and working in class and think about where on their body they are using muscles. Students could use face paints or similar skin-friendly markers to draw on their skeleton and muscles on their legs.
Challenge students to try to think of other muscle pairs in the body which have to work in tandem during movement. Students could draw diagrams of these muscles in two positions of movement to show how one muscle is contracted, while the other is extended, and vice versa.
Body systems
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