Digestive System

Find essential information on the digestive system for educators, including an explanation of the roles of organs, glands, hormones, and nerves in the digestion process and a discussion of the most common problems of the digestive tract.

Your Digestive System offers a brief introduction by a medical doctor. Inner Body offers a more in-depth look at the anatomy and physiology of the human digestive system.

Learn more about different types of digestive systems typically found in invertebrate and vertebrate animals.

Support materials for these resources include background reading, discussion questions, and teachers' guides.

In Investigate the Digestive System: Sid the Science Kid, K-2 students learn what happens during digestion. Resources include a full lesson plan where students make a model of a stomach to simulate how our bodies break down food. You'll find a hands-on experiment, a digestion song (part 6), and a video demonstration of real students engaged in the investigation.

For secondary students, The Digestive System: Crash Course is an entertaining, concise, and informative summary of the process of digestion.

In Ruminants, students learn that animals like cattle, sheep, goats, and giraffes have a digestive system that is highly efficient but very different from our own.

KidsHealth has a section titled Your Digestive System to use with students, which includes a helpful slideshow. You'll find teachers' guides and lesson plans for grades K-2, grades 3-5, and grades 6-8. Other resources include a fun video, quiz, and printable worksheet.

Elementary School Science offers Digestive System Lesson Plan: How It All Goes Down that includes handouts and worksheets.

Teach Engineering has Digestive System lesson plans for grade 5 and grade 7 that address not only how digestion works, but the topics of digestion in outer space and biomedical engineering.

The Utah Education Network has developed lesson plans that investigate the chemical process of digestion and the journey through the digestive system with the Magic School Bus.

There are many engaging, hands-on lessons where students make a model of the digestive system, using simple materials such as juice, “mushable” foods, ziplock bags, and stockings. Take a look at these teacher-tested ideas from Science Journal For Kids, Science Fix, and 123ForMe, which also provides accompanying worksheets. Another model-based investigation offers additional experiments for elementary students demonstrating peristalsis and the relative lengths of each organ of the digestive system.

This digestive system demonstration illustrates the absorption activity of the intestines. You may want to check out these additional ideas from classroom teachers for whole-class digestive system activities.

Online activities such as this digestion quiz, a labeling activity for younger students, or this digestive system interactive for older kids may be used with your classroom smartboard or with individual student devices.

Do you need digestive system worksheets? Find printable worksheets identifying digestion organs and the functions of each part. Easy Science for Kids has a combination quiz and word search printable.

You may want to try this life-size craft activity or this scrap-item craft activity to make 3-D posters of the human digestive system using simple props.

Science World Museum suggests a fun outdoor activity using an obstacle course to simulate the digestive system.

Britannica Kids has a good student text selection, animation, and instructional slides on human and animal digestion. Enchanted Learning offers a full glossary of digestion-related vocabulary.

Some good resources for teaching the digestive system include these videos:

• How the Digestive System Works from KidsHealth (grade 2-4)
• Digestive System from Amoeba Sisters (grades 5-8)
• Why Do We Have Saliva? from Sci Show Kids
• What Happens If I Swallow Gum? from Sci Show Kids
• Your Digestive System for grades 4-8

Wonderopolis is a good place to send curious kids who have questions, such as How Do You Digest Food?, What Do Your Intestines Do?, What Makes Your Stomach Growl? or Do Cows Really Have Four Stomachs?

Study Jams: Digestive System from Scholastic includes a slideshow about the functions of the digestive system and a quiz.

It can be fun for students to learn about other animals' digestive systems. Digestion Facts for Kids includes a discussion of specialized physical and behavioral adaptations that aid various animals in the digestion of their food.