Homeostasis Lab
How Heart Rate Is Affected By Homeostasis
Introduction
For this project we were required to chose a body system/function and investigate how it is affected by the body's ability to maintain homeostasis. Our groups topic was heart rate. The point of the assignment was to design an experiment that would show how the body maintains homeostasis while completing the funcition being investigated. SInce we were trying to determine the effects on heart rate, our experiment needed to show how the body changes the rate at which the heart pumps for different levels of activity. In our experiment we had two group members take their heart rate before and after walking, jogging, and then sprinting 40 m. This experiment clearly showed homeostasis' affect on heart rate, because your heart pumps more with greater activity because more blood needs to circulate when you exert more energy.
Concepts
Homeostasis: The body maintaining equilibrium
Heart Rate: Also known as pulse, is the number of times a person's heart beats per minute
Carotid Artery: Major blood vessels located in the neck, typically used for reading your own pulse.
Reflection
A conclusion for our experiment is stated perfectly within our lab write up. "The data we collected shows that with every increase of difficulty of running heart rate increases. The graph on this poster provides an explanation for this claim, which demonstrates that our claim is correct. Our hypothesis was correct because we had a basic understanding that heart rate increases while you exercise. The major concepts that this lab covered was, homeostasis, circulatory system and heart rate." As for the project itself, I feel like we did a great job in acomplishing the task at hand. We used collaboration the most, because we all worked together to write the Lab Write Up, and we all needed to be engaged and doing something while conducting the actual experiment. Something we could have done to improve the quality of our results would be to have more than two participants. With another data set, we could compare the reults across more examples. However, I am proud of the experiment we designed and how our group worked together to acomplish this assignment.