You probably have a general understanding of how your body works. But do you fully comprehend how all of the intricate functions and systems of the human body work together to keep you healthy? This course will provide that insight. By approaching the study of the body in an organized way, you will be able to connect what you learn about anatomy and physiology to what you already know about your own body.

By taking this course, you will begin to think and speak in the language of the domain while integrating the knowledge you gain about anatomy to support explanations of physiological phenomenon. The course focuses on a few themes that, when taken together, provide a full view of what the human body is capable of and of the exciting processes going on inside of it.

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Anatomy and Physiology is a dynamic textbook for the two-semester human anatomy and physiology course for life science and allied health majors. The book is organized by body system and covers standard scope and sequence requirements. Its lucid text, strategically constructed art, career features, and links to external learning tools address the critical teaching and learning challenges in the course. The web-based version of Anatomy and Physiology also features links to surgical videos, histology, and interactive diagrams.

Students learn about various crystals, such as kidney stones, within the human body. They also learn about how crystals grow and ways to inhibit their growth. They also learn how researchers such as chemical engineers design drugs with the intent to inhibit crystal growth for medical treatment purposes and the factors they face when attempting to implement their designs. A day before presenting this lesson to students, conduct the associated activity, Rock Candy Your Body.

This lesson helps students explore the functions of the kidney and its place in the urinary system. Students learn how engineers design instruments to help people when kidneys are not functioning properly or when environmental conditions change, such as kidney function in space.

In this activity, students filter different substances through a plastic window screen, different sized hardware cloth and poultry netting. Their model shows how the thickness of a filter in the kidney is imperative in deciding what will be filtered out and what will stay within the blood stream.

Students learn how crystallization and inhibition occur by examining calcium oxalate crystals with and without inhibitors that are capable of altering crystallization. Kidney stones are composed of calcium oxalate crystals, and engineers and doctors experiment with these crystals to determine how growth is affected when a potential drug is introduced. Students play the role of engineers by trying to determine which inhibitor would be the best for blocking crystallization.

The urinary system includes the kidneys, the ureters which join the kidneys to the bladder, the bladder itself and the urethras which permit urine collecting in the bladder to be excreted - a process termed micturition. Understanding the physiology of kidney function is key when looking at the diseases that occur in this organ, and the anatomy of all the structures within the urinary sytem is significant as a foundation to understanding the pathology which affects them.

Even though you probably don't choose to spend a lot of time thinking about it, your pee is kind of a big deal. Today we're talking about the anatomy of your urinary system, and how your kidneys filter metabolic waste and balance salt and water concentrations in the blood. We'll cover how nephrons use glomerular filtration, tubular reabsorption, and tubular secretion to reabsorb water and nutrients back into the blood, and make urine with the leftovers.

Chapters:
Introduction: Urinary System
What Do Kidneys Do?
Urinary System Structure
Nephrons
Glomerular Filtration
Tubular Reabsorption
Tubular Secretion
Urine
Review