The Human Body

Fun fact: When you are sleeping your ears continue to pick up sound but your brain blocks them out.

The human body is an amazing and complex thing, doctor’s study for many years to get a good understanding of the human body and how it works as well as how to treat its ailments.

There is a lot of information available about human anatomy and we are going to explore some of the ways you can access it.

A good place to get started is to do some general reading about the body; this will give you a good knowledge base to start off with and will help you choose keywords for your information search.

Try keywords like:

·         Human body

·         Human anatomy

·         Human physiology

If your assignment is on the human body in general, then the keywords above will provide you with a great amount of information.

If you need more information on a specific area of the body then you need to be specific in the search terms you choose. For instance, a book on ‘human anatomy’ might have a paragraph or two about the lungs, but if your whole assignment is on lungs then you will need more information than this. Use the specific area of the body as your search term, try:

·         Lungs

·         Heart

·         Nervous system OR human brain

·         Digestive system

In the Library & on the Library website

Searching the catalogue using the keywords discussed above will find you some great print resources to work from.

If you go to the Information desk online webpage on the Library website you can use encyclopaedias like Britannica and World Book to access information using the keywords above. 

If you then go to the ReferenceDatabases webpage try using the keyword suggestions we have discussed above to search in the Consumer Health Complete databases which contains a lot of information on all areas of health. If you are looking for something specific, such as conditions that affect the heart then perhaps try something like ‘cardiovascular disease’. 

 
Online & websites that you might find useful

If you decide to look for information online, do be careful because there is a lot of information available on the web and you need to make sure that the source of the website is reliable. One great way you can decide if a website it reliable is to look at who created it and ask yourself whether the person or group that created it would be experts in this area. Have a look at some of the below websites to get an idea of what sites you can use.

Atlas of the Human Body

This website was created by the American Medical Association so you know that the site was made by people who have knowledge and expertise about the human anatomy. The site has some great information about many areas of the human body and even includes some information about disorders.

Human body

This website was developed by the science section of National Geographic. It has some great information and even interactive sections like this page on lungs
Fun fact: Coughing can cause air to move through your windpipe faster than the speed of sound.

Science kids

This website is aimed at a younger audience and is written by a gentleman with a degree who has a lot of experience in the area of Science. It is a great resource with a lot of interactive areas to enjoy and learn from.

The Human Body: Anatomy, Facts & Functions

This is a great article that talks about all the areas of the human anatomy, it also contains links to provide you with more information about each area. If you scroll to the bottom of the page you can see that the woman that wrote the article holds a number of degrees including a Master of Science in biology which means she is well qualified to be educating others on the body.