The Digestive System

Today in science we used a papertowel roll to represent our esophagus. We wrote the word mouth up at the top opening and then taped a plastic baggie to the bottom. We wrote the word stomach on the baggie. When we tried to put a cracker in the top hole it didn't fit so we used our hands to represent chewing and let pieces of the cracker fall through the esophagus and into the stomach. There was a little stomach juice (water) already in the baggie to help the food digest. We used our fingers to move it gently around as the stomach muscles churn. This could not have looked more realistic! One student didn't break up her cracker enough and it got stuck in her esophagus. Talk about a teachable moment... that's why you have to chew your food before you swallow it! She was able to cough it back up and chew it more before she swallowed it.