The Year 8 Science class have been learning about the digestive system as part of their investigation of body systems. We ‘TAPped’ into local expertise by inviting Erin Gardener from The Vet Group to describe and contrast the difference between a cow and human stomach and their respective structures. Unlike humans, Erin explained that cows, like most ruminants, have four stomachs that each play a role enabling cows to ruminate and regurgitate previously consumed feed and chew it further to help it ferment and be absorbed. Students learned that the four chambers, the rumen, reticulum, omasum, and abomasum varied in function and structure and helped move the cow’s feed through the digestive system. Erin clarified that calves’ stomachs are initially like humans and only the abomasum is functional as milk bypasses the rumen when they are on a milk only diet. Various types of cow feeds and their importance in a balanced diet were discussed and Erin described digestive diseases and problems in calves and cows. Then, armed with gloves, students examined four stomach examples and had to indicate what each chamber was, where it was placed in a cow digestive system and which stomach was the most similar to ours. There would have been some interesting dinner table conversations in Year 8 homes that night! Comments are closed.
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