Experiment set BIOLOGY 2: SKIN and HAIR

The skin serves a lot of functions 

The human skin is more than just a covering for the body. It is a complex sensory organ that fulfils a multitude of tasks, above all protective and regulatory functions. In a series of simple but fascinating experiments, the pupils investigate how the skin’s cold, heat and pressure receptors are distributed, take fingerprints and recognise them as being unique to the individual, learn to read a piece of Braille text, experience the effect of evaporative cooling and wrinkled skin and examine sunscreen with different protection factors.

Human hair

Human head hair is between 0.04 and 0.12 millimetres in thickness and grows 0.3 to 0.5 millimetres per day. While the primary function of scalp hair is to protect the head against cold and the sun, the purpose of eyebrows is to protect the eye from sweat from the forehead and the eyelashes help prevent foreign bodies from entering the eye. It is possible to identify the structure of human hair under a microscope. The pupils perform a very impressive experiment to investigate how much load a human hair can withstand.