biology

Cardiovascular System: The Heart

Laszlo Vass, Ed.D. Version 42-0006-06-01

Lab RepoRt assistant

This document is not meant to be a substitute for a formal laboratory report. The Lab Report Assistant is simply a summary of the experiment’s questions, diagrams if needed, and data tables that should be addressed in a formal lab report. The intent is to facilitate student’s writing of lab reports by providing this information in an editable file which can be sent to an instructor

puRpose

Explain why you did this exercise. Where there any safety precautions you needed to follow? If so, what were they?

Exercise 1: Microscopic Anatomy of Cardiac Muscle

obseRvations

Sketch and label your slide in the space provided. Include a description of the structures you observed on the slide.

Questions

A. What are some unique structural features of cardiac muscle?

B. What are intercalated discs and what do they do?

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C. Why does cardiac muscle have to be both elastic and strong?

D. Which of the three layers of the heart did the tissue used to make your slide originate from?

Exercise 2: The Pulmonary and Systemic Circuits Questions A. Trace the flow of blood through the pulmonary and systemic circuits. Begin in the right atrium

and end in the superior/inferior vena cava. Be sure to list every vessel, heart chamber, and heart

valve the blood flows through.

B. Explain what you learned from the online human heart dissection.

Exercise 3: Sheep Heart Dissection/Cat Heart

Dissection and Comparison

Questions

A. Compare the structure of the fetal pig heart and sheep heart. How are they similar? How are they different?

B. Why is the heart referred to as a double pump?

C. There are four valves in the heart. Name each valve, list its location and give its function.

D. Compare the left and right sides of the dissected heart. What differences do you see?

E. Compare and contrast the functions of the atria and the ventricles.

F. Where is the myocardium located?

G. How does the heart supply blood to its own cells?