Real World: Heart Rate and Blood Pressure
Learn about the physiological effects reduced gravity environments have on the human body. Use multiplication to calculate cardiac output and find out what effect space travel has on sensory-motor skills, stroke volume and heart rates of the astronauts.
Discussion and writing prompts
1. Your heart rate and blood pressure change throughout the day in response to activity, emotions, and your body's needs. Why is it important for these changes to occur, and what do they tell us about how the circulatory system helps maintain balance in the body? Describe a time when your heart rate changed. Explain why your body responded that way and how your circulatory system worked to meet your body's needs.
2. Heart rate and blood pressure are measurements that provide important information about a person's health. Why is it valuable to collect data over time rather than relying on a single measurement?
3. Living in microgravity affects many body systems, including the heart and blood vessels. Why is it important for NASA to study how the circulatory system adapts to spaceflight before sending astronauts on longer missions to the Moon or Mars?
Background Information
Grades 3 through 5
- NASA eClips Our World: Fluid Shift (video)
- NASA eClips Our World: Exercise in Space (video)
Grades 3 through 12
- NASA eClips Ask SME: Astronaut Strength and Conditioning Specialist Corey Twine (video)
Grades 5 through 12
- Lunar and Planetary Institute Effects of Space on the Human Body (webpage)
Grades 6 through 12
- NASA eClips Real World: Physically Fit on Earth and Beyond (video)
- NASA Living and Working in Space (pdf)
- NASA Human Research Program The Human Body in Space (webpage)
- NASA Experiments to Unlock How Human Bodies React to Long Space Journeys (webpage)
- NASA Living in Space (webpage)
- Baylor College of Medicine Center for Space Medicine How the Human Body Changes in Space (website)
- NASA Cardiovascular Health in Microgravity (webpage)
Activities
Grades K through 12
- NASA Train Like An Astronaut (pdf)
Grades 3 through 8
- NASA eClips Our World: Keeping the Beat (pdf)
Grades 5 through 8
- Teach Engineering The Beat Goes On (website)
Grades 5 through 12
- NASA Train Like an Astronaut (website)
Grades 6 through 12
- American Heart Association Got a Minute? (pdf)