Heritage Xperiential Learning School

Name: _______________ Grade VII ___ Subject: Expedition Date: __________

URINARY SYSTEM
Learning Targets:
● I can describe the structure of the Urinary System.
● I can explain how kidneys remove wastes from the body.
● I can explain how kidneys maintain the amount of salt and water in the body.

More than 5,000 employees of the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) went on a three-
day strike on Wednesday in support of their demands, including equal pay for equal work and
regularisation of ad hoc employees. The strike is part of a State-wide agitation by municipal
employees.
The MCG Commissioner has, meanwhile, kicked-off a special 80-hour round-the-clock
cleanliness drive to rid the city of garbage piling up due to the strike of the safai karamcharis.

Why do you think this step was taken up by MCG Commissioner?

If this was not done, what it might have led to?

Do you think this kind of a situation can arise

in our body as well?

Which body system is designed to handle this

kind of a situation?
Are the muscles connected
with it voluntary?
What are the waste products of our body?
Connect the waste products with the body Why do I need to urinate
system you have studied more frequently in
How do you think they are removed from the winters?
body?
Undigested food? –
Carbon-di-oxide? –
What is sweat? –

Ever thought what is

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Interesting Facts about Urinary System

● The human bladder can stretch to hold about 400ml of urine.

● All the blood in our body is filtered 400 times through the kidneys every day.
● Urine stays in the bladder for up to 5 hours before discharge depending on the amount of liquid
consumed if the urinary system is healthy.
● The kidney can clean more than 1 million gallons of water in a lifetime, which is more than
enough to fill a small lake.
● You may suffer from stress if the muscles supporting the bladder are weakened. You can help to
strengthen these by doing pelvic floor exercises.

● Urine is a blood by-product and is non-toxic. It contains 95% water, 2.5% urea and 2.5% of other
mixtures of minerals, salts and enzymes.
● If one kidney fails to function and is removed, the other kidney can increase in size by
50% within two months to handle the entire task of filtration
● Urine is often diluted and added to potted plants in the garden as it has adequate urea content
which is a wonderful source of nitrogen to plants

Any thoughts that arise in your mind? Pen them down.

Here is an interesting reading for you to find answers to the structure and function of this amazing
system. Do answer the questions, as you read along.

Like the rest of Joe’s organs, I am unappealing in appearance – reddish-brown, shaped like a bean, about
the size of his fist. I am Joe's right kidney; my partner is on the other side of his lower spine. Joe has a
very low opinion of me. He thinks of me simply as the producer of an unglamorous fluid- urine and as a
kind of secondary garbage-disposal unit. Brother! Actually, I am the master chemist of Joe's body. And
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Joe's intestinal tract is not his main waste-disposal system--I am. Blood passes through me continuously,
and I clean and filter it, ridding it of wastes that are potentially deadly.
Wonder what are the potentially deadly wastes that the kidney helps in removing? All answers are
accepted as the answers are from the assumptions they have. Clarity will come later.

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I control vital water balance-too much and his cells would drown, too little and he would simply dry up.
I ensure that his blood is neither too acidic nor too alkaline.
How do you think the quantity of water is controlled through kidneys?
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As a matter of fact, I do so many things for Joe that the doctors still do not have a complete catalogue of
my activities. Although I weigh only 140 grams, I contain more than a million little filtering units--
nephrons. Under a high- power microscope one of these looks something like a big headed worm, with
a twisted tail called a renal tubule. Untangle and stretch out my tubules and there would be 105
kilometers of them! Each hour my partner and I filter twice the total blood in Joe's body. And it is mighty
tricky filtering, I might add. I do not allow red blood cells or large particles of essential blood proteins to
pass through my fine filters. Otherwise they might be lost in urine. In my tubules, 99 percent of the fluid
is reabsorbed. Essential vitamins, amino acids, glucose, hormones and so on are also returned to the
bloodstream but excess of any of them is discarded in urine.
What all components are filtered by the kidney, to be removed from the body?
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Which components of blood go back into circulation in the body?
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Thus, if Joe has eaten two big slabs of custard pie, his urine may show enough sugar to fool a doctor
into thinking he has diabetes. Let him eat a big portion of a particular salty food, and he might be in real
danger if I did not extract the salt. The biggest waste I have to deal with is urea, the end product of
protein digestion. Like everything else, this must be kept in precise balance. Too little means there has
been damage to my upstairs neighbor, the liver. Too much of urea if unchecked can lead to shock, coma,
death.
Now there’s greater clarity. What all is filtered by the kidney, to be removed from the body?
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Doing my job, I produce urine continuously--about a litre a day each for my partner and me. Microscopic
droplets of this waste fluid pass out of each of my million tubules and feed into a tiny reservoir at my
center. This connects with the urinary bladder - a constant source of annoyance and embarrassment to
Joe. He is a sleep spoiler making Joe get out of bed on cold nights. At important business conferences he
speaks with greater authority than Joe's boss or his clients. They may have important messages, but his
take precedence. Bladder does not ask for attention but demands it.
 Joe thinks of his intestine as his main waste-disposal system, but he is wrong. That tract might go on
strike for a week--or in extreme cases for several weeks--and Joe would not necessarily face any grave
danger. But let his urinary system close shop for more than a few days and he would be in real trouble.
Elimination of toxic substances, waste products of metabolism and other substances which are of no use
is excretion which is sometimes mistakenly taken as egestion - removal of faeces (undigested semisolid
waste) from body through anus is egestion. The substances filtered out from the body through Urinary
system form urine.
When full, urinary bladder is roughly the shape of a punching bag. Bladder capacity varies with
individuals--from 250 to 750 ml. Joe is in the normal range - about half a litre. Day and night, kidneys
dribble urine into bladder as they filter wastes from blood. It comes via two tiny ureters - tubes 3mm
wide and 30 centimeters long. My exit to outside the body is through urethra. The amount of fluid I
empty through it each day varies, tremendously -- from half litre to seven litres. Joe’s is about average --
one and a half litres. But this can vary. The volume is largely determined by fluid losses from sweat
glands and lungs. When Joe perspires urine production falls.
At night, my activity slows down to about a third of daytime levels; otherwise, Joe would be up every
hour or so. Like everyone else, Joe has noticed that certain things step up my activity. When he is chilled,
for example the blood supply to his skin is reduced--to preserve internal heat. This means an increased
flow of blood to internal organs, including me. With more blood, I make more urine. Anger in Joe
produces much the same result. His blood pressure rises, and I get an increased supply of blood for
processing. Result: increased urine output. Alcohol produces the same result.
When bladder empties, muscles at the top contract first, then those below squeeze. In effect, bladder
wrings itself out. How often it does so is determined by many things. Worry, anxiety and fear hoist blood
pressure and thereby step up my activity and production of urine. Mental stress, the excitement of a ball
game or anger tend to tighten bladder’s muscular walls. It may not be full but it wishes to be relieved
just the same. 
Urinary bladder has two valves called sphincters. One at the base opens automatically when bladder is
distended; the second is a little lower and is under voluntary control. Opening of the first makes Joe
conscious of a desire to urinate. Opening of the second sets events in motion. Controlled opening of this
second valve must be learned in early childhood.
Joe has also heard of kidney stones. These may occur when urine is too concentrated with calcium salts,
uric acid and they simply crystallize out. The stones may be tiny "gravel" size and might pass out of the
body without Joe's even being aware of them. If they grow larger--say to the size of a pea--the story may
be quite different. As they try to pass through my exquisitely sensitive ureter, the tube leading to the
bladder, they can produce intense pain. In extreme cases, stones may grow as large as a grapefruit.
These big ones require surgery. Joe may avoid the formation of kidney stones by maintaining an
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adequate fluid intake. The equivalent of nine glasses of water a day--most of which comes from food--is
about right. 
My really big problem is damage to my filters, or nephrons.  It usually creeps from infection. Fortunately,
such infections are usually promptly controlled by antibiotics. Injury--from a kidney punch or an auto
accident, for example--is also troublesome to my nephrons, as are many drugs and poisons.

Glossary
alkaline: a base that dissolves in water
hormone: a chemical usually occurring naturally in human body causing other organs to do specific tasks
reservoir: source of storage and supply example-a small lake
metabolism: chemical processes that occur in human body in order to maintain life
dribble: fall slowly in drops
wring: squeeze and twist to force liquid from it
hoist: raise or lift
distended: swollen due to pressure from inside/ bloated

So, did you find some answers to your questions?

Task 1: Watch the video attentively to extract the relevant information.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZMJeZL-BVg#!

CHECK POINT:

1. What is the purpose of the urinary bladder?

2. The walls of the urinary bladder are stretchy, what do you think is the advantage
to having these stretchy walls?
3. What connects the kidneys to the urinary bladder?
4. What is a urinary tract infection?
5. Why is kidney failure such a serious health problem?

EXTRA LINKS for better understanding.

http://kidneys-are-us.weebly.com/filtration-and-reabsorption.html
https://www.twig-world.com/experiment/osmosis-and-volume-4172/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvZPV2iR1pU on diffusion and osmosis

(well explained)
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What have you learnt about Osmosis? Is it similar or different from

Diffusion?

To explain osmosis we can give a link of raisins experiment. Children will have fun doing that experiment
at home and can share their learning from the experiment in class

Task: Observe the labelled diagram of the Urinary System and practice it in the right box.

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Consolidation Time- Urinary System- In the table form, write the structure and
function using academic vocabulary.
Organ Structure Function
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Kidney

Ureters

Urethra

Urinary
Bladder

Sphincter
s
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Nephrons

Osmosis What is special Process-

about its cell?

EXIT CHECK OUT WRT. THE LTs. Put a Tick or Cross

● I can describe the structure of the Urinary System.
● I can explain how kidneys remove wastes from the body.
● I can explain how kidneys maintain the amount of salt and water in the body.
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