Welcome to the Human Body!

by Greg Crowther

This is an introductory song to kick off a human anatomy and/or physiology course.

Well, there's integumentary,
Skeletal and muscular,
Nervous and endocrine
And cardiovascular.

Lymphatic-slash-immune,
Respiratory and digestive,
Finally, there's urinary,
Flanked by reproductive.

Eleven systems here to learn;
It may seem daunting,
But we'll take each one in turn....

Welcome to the human body!
Here's a course that's all about you!
Eleven systems here to study --
All your parts and what they do!
Welcome to the human body!

• karaoke

• MP3 (demo; with the Zelcro Family Singers)

• music video

• sheet music

Songs like this one can be used during class meetings and/or in homework assignments. Either way, the song will be most impactful if students DO something with it, as opposed to just listening.

An initial, simple follow-up activity could be to answer the study questions below. A more extensive interaction with the song might entail (A) learning to sing it, using an audio file and/or sheet music as a guide, and/or (B) illustrating it with pictures, bodily poses, and/or bodily movements. The latter activity could begin with students identifying the most important or most challenging content of the song, and deciding how to illustrate that particular content.

(1) This song lists eleven organ systems. What is an organ system?

(2) Compare the song's listing of the organ systems with the order in which they are covered in your syllabus or your textbook. Is the order the same?

(3) Among the organ systems, which ones are already familiar to you in terms of overall structure and function? Which ones are NOT very familiar to you?

(4) Are the eleven organ systems completely distinct from each other, or do they overlap somewhat?

(5) Consider the phrase "welcome to the human body," the central phrase of this song. How would you describe the tone of the phrase in this song? Excited? Sincere? Ironic? Comical? Mysterious?

(6) Considering the specific content covered by this song, is there anything important that is missing, unclear, or misleading? If so, what?