Download Vocab List

Travels of a Red Blood Cell Competition
Objective: Create a story that illustrates the flow of a red blood cell from birth, through the
heart and lungs, around the body, and to its demise. The story needs to include the vocab
list below, and have 35 underlined words, as in the example below (you should underline
each word in the list, and choose key others). Remember, the more creative the better!
The winning story will be used on the exam at the end of unit.
Due Date: Thursday, April 2, 2015
Worth: 20 points
Vocab List:
Aorta
Aortic semilunar
Arteriole(s)
Biconcave
Capillary beds
Carbon dioxide
Chordae Tendinae
Coronary sinus
Fossa ovalis
Hemoglobin
Inferior vena cava
Lungs
Left atrium
Left ventricle
Ligamentum arteriosum
Metabolic wastes
Mitral/Bicuspid valve
Oxygen
Papillary muscle
Pulmonary artery/trunk
Pulmonary semilunar valve
Pulmonary vein(s)
Right atrium
Right ventricle
Superior vena cava
Tricuspid valve
Valves
Veins
Venules
Example Story:
This is the story of RICKY RACER THE RED BLOOD CELL. Ricky “The Red” began life as a
proerythroblast in the red marrow of the 5th rib. In his reticulocyte form, he jumped free of his
surroundings and into a nearby branch of a nearby vein. The sudden free fall into the rushing river
of blood was an incredible natural high. Ricky was on his way to an unbelievable journey. Ricky
was swirled up and away. The vessel, which returns deoxygenated blood from the lower
extremities, is called the inferior vena cava. From this vessel, he was carried rather gently into right
atrium, the initial collecting chamber of the heart. But suddenly, he was pounded from above by an
incoming bunch of Ricky Racer clones, or at least they all appeared to look like him. They had just
arrived by way of the superior vena cava from the upper extremities. As he was jostled about in this
chamber, he was bumped from below by a few more fellas. They had just arrived though the
opening of the coronary sinus, which returns deoxygenated blood from the coronary veins. He had
just enough time to notice the fossa ovalis, which is a slight oval depression which marked the spot
of a previous fetal by-pass. Then, before he could say “Golly Gee Whiz”, he was shoved from above
and dropped suddenly into a rather large, cavernous chamber, the right ventricle. He slid down a
white, glisten thing that had strings attached. He later found out what he thought was a slide was
really the tricuspid valve, and the strings were chordae tendinae. He was forced down so violently,
he was thrust into what he thought was a punching bag. It turned out to be a mound of muscle, or
papillary muscle. It’s a good thing, he thought, that he was a tough, flexible fella, ‘cause otherwise,
if a RBC could bruise, he’d be black and blue all over. (CORNY JOKE) Ohh, Ohh!!! Another
contraction was occurring. Up and away through the pulmonary semilunar valve (a valve) and into
the vessel called the pulmonary artery he went. He was on his way to the lungs ( a set of organs).
As he hit the top of the T-intersection, he says goodbye to half of his friends as Ricky took a sharp
right. Had he made this journey while his human host was a fetus, he might have taken a fetal bypass
straight up and into the aorta, but that bypass is now nothing more than a small remnant of tissue
called the ligamentum arteriosum. Too Bad!!! No short cuts today. “What’s going on?”, he shouts.
Things are getting real tight now and all his buddies are lining up single file to squeeze though the
microscopic capillary beds. Something funny is happening to Ricky. “Well, I’ll be darned!”, he
exclaims. He just turned bright pink. “Oh, no!”, he cries as he looks at his little curvaceous biconcave
shape. “I’m really a girl!”, he screams. “NO!”, his friends yelled. “You’re an IT!”, they replied. “Huh?”,
he whimpered. What a dumb RBC! He has no nucleus, and, therefore, he has no DNA. He lost all his
genes (sex ones, too) back in the bone marrow before he was ejected into the bloodstream. But a
smile returned to his (It’s) face as he still had his hemoglobin, which allowed him to be in the employ
of the transport of oxygen, the gas which caused him to turn pink in the first place. He was off, again.
He was now zooming though the pulmonary veins, the vessels which returned him to the heart. He
entered the opposite side of the heart by way of a chamber called the left atrium. Again, there was
a momentary pause as he went slip, sliding away down the cusps of the mitral/bicuspid valve. Once
more, he became tangled in the string-like structures. But this time, he didn’t run into the punching
bags. Ricky just happened to have gotten lucky and landed between two of them. He is now in the
final chamber of the heart, the left ventricle. Another pause and he is off once more. This time it
seems to be with much greater intensity. This must be because the outer chamber wall on the left
side of the heart is much thicker than the right side. He zooms though the aortic semilunar valve
and into the largest artery of the body, the aorta. He races though the arteries. He zings along into
smaller vessels, the arterioles. “OH, NO!”, he screams. Another traffic jam. Back to the single file
stuff. How he hates capillaries. As he slowly courses through the area, something absolutely horrid
happens. He turns dark RED. How depressing! He has lost his oxygen to the surrounding tissues
and gained carbon dioxide (thick gasssssssessss). But wait, much worse is in store for him. All his
yummy goodies (nutrients) are leaving him and, instead, the metabolic wastes are hitching a ride.
How disgusting! Why did he have to become the equivalent of a garbage truck? Tough Luck! The
pace picks up a little as he enters a slightly larger vessel called a venule. From here he enters an
even larger vessel, a vein. There is something different about this vessel. It has valves, which
prevents him from going backwards. Now, he is really beginning to hate life. He’s at a momentary
standstill. It seems he is stuck in a varicose vein. He rethinks, “It’s not too bad. I have a little break.”
But before he can get too comfortable, he is on his way again. He is actually beginning to enjoy the
slow, comfy pace of the vein. It is not like going a 100 mph in the arteries. And the massaging action
of those skeletal muscles are doing wonders to invigorate his little body. He did take a little detour
through the kidneys and unload most of his garbage. “Hey, I’m cool and wanna do this some more.
This 60 second ride is a cheap thrill. I bet I can hang on for at least another 119 days.” And so he
did until he crashed racing through the liver and broke apart into lots and lots of molecular pieces.
What a sad ending!