Trick or Treat Graffiti Wall: Integrating Halloween in a Lesson on Circulatory System

Halloween-Bringing it into a Science Classroom

For Halloween I surprised my students by decorating the doors to my classroom. A mummy named Bob- We decided to call Homeostasis Bob because we are not technically supposed to teach or test on the word homeostasis only the concept. (inside joke) and students brought in some random decorations and I used them to create the other door. They were surprised when they got to class today. A simple gesture of appreciation.

I wanted to integrate a little of the Halloween spirit into today's lesson. The topic of discussion was an introductory chat about the Circulatory/Cardiovascular System. This is the system with the most misconceptions or 'urban myths' so I wrote each one on a piece of paper including: Blood is blue until it meets the air, Humans have approximately 8 pints of blood in their body and The human heart weighs 3 pounds. 

Each student was given one trick (false statement) or treat (truth) and they had 3 minutes to investigate and decide if it was in fact a trick or treat. Then they shared their findings with the class. The conversation was very enlightening and students were really engaged because a lot of the statements were things they believed to be true. It was fun dispelling their misconceptions. 1st and 2nd period created the graffiti wall and scrambled tricks and treats so each class had to figure out which were in the wrong place.

Then students created a place mat for each table where they drew cartoons explaining what they learned about their trick or treat. Finally we closed the discussion by making a connection between the Circulatory system and the three previous systems we have learned about: Digestive, Nervous, Endocrine further illuminating why blood and the Cardio-vascular system is so critical for homeostasis (or as we like to say Bob)