Biological Rhythms
Biological Rhythms
There are daily
rhythms to many of our physiological functions and activities....our sleep,
body temperature, alertness, neurotransmitter levels, etc. Many of these
rhythms run on a cycle of about 24 hours. Rhythms that run on this 24 cycle
are called "Circadian Rhythms".
"Circa" comes from the latin word meaning "around"
and "dies" comes from the word "a day". Even if you
lived in a dark cave and didn't know what time it was, the cycles would
still exist and they would hold to the 24 hour rhythm. While neuroscientists
are not exactly sure how the brain keeps track of time, there are several
areas of the brain that may be involved. One of the possible "pacemakers"
in the brain is a part of the hypothalamus called the suprachiasmatic nucleus.
Grades 3-12
One circadian
rhythm that is easy to keep track of is your own body temperature. Get
an oral thermometer like the one you use when you are sick. Make sure you
know how to use it properly!! Measure your temperature every 2 hours from
the time you get up in the morning to the time you go to sleep. (If you
can't measure your temperature every 2 hours, then just measure it as often
as it is feasible). Don't eat or drink anything right before you take your
temperature. Make sure to take your temperature the same way every time
and that you read the temperature VERY ACCURATELY....the differences in
your body temperature are only a few 0.1 of a degree. Chart your body temperature
with time...use the X axis for "Time of Day" and Y axis for "Body
Temperature". Do you see a pattern?
An additional activity to do with the body temperature measurements is to combine the reaction time experiment. Measure your reaction time to catching the ruler and plot your "catch times" with your body temperature. Is there a correlation? Is your reaction time faster or slower with warmer body temperatures?
Materials:
Grades 3-12
People have biological rhythms...what about other creatures? Many schools
have classroom pets - a rat, rabbit, hamster, fish or frog. If your class
has a pet, study its behavior to see if you can determine any cycling patterns.
For example, if you have a rat, observe the amount of time it spends eating,
walking and sleeping at different times of the day. Check on it every 2
hours and watch it for 10 minute periods. It is best if a group of students
helps out. Assign 1 behavior to each student. Therefore, one person can
measure the amount of time spent eating, another person can watch for sleeping,
etc. Do not disturb the animal while you are observing it. Chart the amount
of time spent in each behavior at different times of the day. Keep track
of it for several days. Are there any consistent patterns?
Materials:
Grades 3-9
Sometimes it seems like time
flys by....sometimes it drags on forever. How good are you at estimating
time? Do you have a built in stopwatch? Try to estimate the length of 1
minute. Have someone with a stopwatch say "Go". When you think
1 minute has past, say "Stop". Check to see how close you were.
Try several times and see if your performance gets better. Do "timing"
stategies work, like counting seconds with "1-mississippi, 2-mississippi,
3-mississippi,...."?
Materials:
Grades 3-12
How many times have you set your alarm clock for a particular time only to wake up a few minutes before it rings. You find out you didn't need the alarm clock at all because you woke up without it. How good is your "built-in alarm clock"?
This experiment is best done in the summer on a weekend or some other time you don't have to wake up at a special time. Before you go to sleep, determine what time you want to wake up, but do not set your regular alarm clock. The wake up time should be a time that you usually wake up. For example, if you wake up to go to school at 7 am., tell yourself to "Wake up at 7 am." Then just go to sleep and see what time you wake up.
If you have a few days to try this, keep track of your wake up times to see if you come closer to your built-in alarm clock's setting. You could even graph how far off you were from the time you wanted to wake up by graphing number of minutes away from your built-in alarm clock's setting. For example, if on the first day you woke up at 7:10 instead of 7:00, you would be off by 10 min. If on the second day you woke up at 7:08 instead of 7:00, you would be off by 8 min. See if there are any patterns to your graph.
Materials:
DO
NOT do this experiment when you have to wake up a special time
(like on a school day)! Your built-in alarm clock may FAIL and you will
be LATE.
See Circadian Rhythms and Oscillating Reactions, Circadian Technologies and the Society for Neuroscience page on biological clocks for more about nature's rhythms.
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