Lab 1

Approximate Time: 3 hours

Option 1: Thermia Game

• You should have a total of 48 cards: Personal temperature cards (18), climate cards (6), instant cards (12), and other (6).

• Personal Temperature Cards: Use these cards to increase or decrease your own body temperature OR that of another player.  YOU decide which player the card will apply to. If “Share the Love” is played, the personal temperature card is applied to ALL players.
• Climate Cards: These cards apply to ALL players in the same way, raising or lowering everyone’s body temperatures at the same time.
• Instant Cards: They may be played at ANY TIME by ANY PLAYER, but the player does NOT draw a new card immediately after playing an instant card but must instead wait until his/her turn.
• Other: Positive Feedback, Negative Feedback & Back in Time can be played on the player’s turn as a personal temperature card or climate card can be.

The Rules

• Shuffle all 48 cards and place them next to the game board.
• Have each player draw three cards. You should look at them but not show your opponents.
• Players should place their counter on the “Start Here” spot.

The objective of the Game

• The main objective of the game is to stay in the game longer than anyone else and be in homeostasis (or closest to it) when the game ends for the first group.
• The winner is the group closest to homeostasis at the end of the game.
• Form TEAMS of 2-3 students.
• When playing in teams, each student must protect themself, but also their partner(s), making strategy more complicated.

Game Play

• Each round, the team whose turn it is does the following:
• Draw a card from the draw pile.
• Plays a card from their hand OR draws an extra card (limit of 6 cards, so discard a card if needed at end of turn).
• Depending on the card played, this team (or the team of their choice) moves their counter in the direction indicated.

Danger Zone & Rolling

• If the team has moved into the danger zone, the team must roll the dice.
• This decides if the team moves deeper into the danger zone or if they can stop moving.
• If a team moves into hyperthermia or hypothermia that team’s body is under stress.
• Once out of homeostasis, the body’s physiology can quickly spiral out of control. For that reason, the team must roll the dice.
• If the dice lands on one of the numbers shown on the board, that team moves deeper into hypothermia or hyperthermia and rolls again.
• This continues until “Game Over” or until the team rolls a number not shown on the board.
• The game ends when the first team lands on “Game over”.

Option 2: Vital Signs and Exercise

Step1: Students will take their baseline vital signs (e.g., temperature, blood pressure, heart rate,….).

Step 2: Perform 2-5 minutes of exercise using the equipment available in the lab.

Procedure:

1. Prediction: before starting the exercise, students will predict how each vital sign will change – whether it will increase, decrease, or stay the same.
2. Exercise: students will then carry out the exercise.
3. Post-activity measurement: after the activity, students will measure their vital sings again.

Discussion:

Class Discussion: after collecting the data, gather again as a class to discuss the observations.  Compare predictions with actual outcomes and explore reasons for any variations in the results.

Analysis: discuss the physiological reasons behind the changes in vital signs due to exercise.

Graphing and Analysis: students are expected to graph their results using Microsoft Excel.  This will help visually represent the changes in vital signs before and after exercise, allowing for a more detailed analysis and understanding of the physiological effects of physical activity.

You were instructed to track your sleep-wake cycle for 3 consecutive days (or longer) in the week prior to this lab, recording the total length of sleep for each day and any disruptions.  In the lab, you will use this data and collaborate with other students in your group to combine your sleep data for analysis. As you analyze your sleep data, keep the following questions in mind:

1. Is this amount of sleep “enough” for you, and how do your determine what is “enough”?
2. How does your sleep pattern compare to other students in your physiology class?
3. What strategies can you implement to improve the quality and amount of your sleep during this semester?

Please use Excel to represent your group’s combined sleep-wake data.  This will allow you to create a clear and informative graphs that illustrate your findings and help answer the questions above.  Make sure to collaborate with your group members to ensure all data is accurately represented.