BME HealthReach is an outreach program that aims to teach math and science to hospitalized children using their own disease as the motivation and springboards for learning.
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Make Your Own Blood! Activity |
| Each student makes their own mason jar of blood to take home and will understand how all the different parts of blood function – plasma (clear liquid), red blood cells (red beads), white blood cells (white beads), and platelets (pearl beads). |
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Oxygen Circulation Activity |
| In this example of blood vessels in the human body, the red candy represents a normal red blood cell, the blue candy represents an oxygen molecule, and the yellow candy represents a sickled red blood cell. A symptom of sickle cell disease is inefficient oxygen transport. This is visualized by the oxygen molecule candy sitting in the red blood cell candy, as shown and the inability for the oxygen molecule candy to sit on the sickled red blood cell (yellow candy). |
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Hemoglobin Activity |
| Red blood cells have special proteins on their surface called hemoglobin. Hemoglobin can bind oxygen and has various states: oxygenated and deoxygenated. In sickle cell disease, hemoglobin have different receptors, causing them to bind together in the deoxygenated state (blue puzzle pieces that fit together). The bound deoxygenated hemoglobin make the red blood cell rigid, creating the typical sickle (or crescent) shape. |
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Complete Blood Count/Hemocyctomer Activity |
| A complete blood count test is one of the most common procdures ordered in the hospital and is used to measure the concentration of red and white blood cells, and platelets. A hemocyctomer was originally invented to count blood cells. The exact dimensions and volume of each chamber (white squares above) in the device are known. It is therefore possible to count the number of cells in a specific volume of fluid, and then calculate the concentration of cells in the fluid overall. The students can shake the device to move the red beads (red blood cells) and count the cells in the larger squares. |
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Pi Day Activity |
Healthreach students work with patients to empirically discover where we get the mathematical constant “pi”. The activity asks students to measure the circumference and diameter of various circles in the Healthreach “tote box” and other circular objects from around the room. The students then work through dividing each circumference by its respective diameter and observe the same number coming up every time! 3.14159265 35897932384626433832795028……
