5th Grade Science — The Human Body — Fearfully and Wonderfully Made
Students will learn about the three types of muscle tissue and how the muscular system demonstrates purposeful, intelligent design.
Your body has over 600 muscles that allow you to do everything from running and jumping to smiling and blinking. Without muscles, your bones could not move — muscles are the engines that power your body. God designed muscles and bones to work together as a perfectly coordinated team.
There are three types of muscle in your body, each designed by God for a specific job. Skeletal muscles are attached to your bones and help you move voluntarily — you choose to use them when you walk, write, or throw a ball. Smooth muscles work automatically inside your organs, moving food through your digestive system and blood through your vessels. Cardiac muscle is found only in your heart and beats non-stop your entire life without you ever having to think about it!
Muscles work in pairs. When you bend your arm, your bicep muscle contracts (gets shorter) while your tricep relaxes. When you straighten your arm, the opposite happens. This push-pull system is an example of brilliant engineering. Every movement you make requires muscles working in coordinated pairs — a design that reveals careful planning by our Creator.
Your heart is the hardest-working muscle in your body. It beats about 100,000 times every day, pumping blood to every cell. Over a lifetime, your heart will beat more than 2.5 billion times — and it never takes a vacation! Only an all-wise God could design a muscle that works so faithfully for so long.
Muscles grow stronger when you use them. God designed your body so that exercise and hard work make your muscles bigger and more powerful. This reflects the Biblical principle that effort and discipline bring good results. Taking care of the body God gave us is an act of stewardship and gratitude.
Try this experiment: Hold a textbook straight out in front of you with one arm. Time how long you can hold it before your muscles get tired. Rest for two minutes and try again. Notice how muscles get fatigued. Then flex your arm and feel your bicep contract. Draw a diagram showing how the bicep and tricep work together to bend and straighten your arm.