Have you ever seen an X-ray? Maybe you’ve had one at the dentist to check your teeth or if you hurt a bone. X-rays let us see inside our bodies, like our skeletons! Today, we’re going to talk about a very important part of our skeleton: the skull.
The skull is the bone that protects your brain. It’s not just one bone, but many bones that come together when we’re babies. The skull is famous for being spooky, like on Halloween or pirate flags. But did you know that your skull is super important for you every day?
Imagine if you didn’t have a skull. What would happen? First, there would be nothing to protect your brain. Your brain is like the boss of your body. It helps you think, feel, and control everything you do. The skull is like a helmet that keeps your brain safe.
But that’s not all! Your skull also has special places for your eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. It helps protect these important parts too. Your eyes fit into the skull, your ears are protected on the sides, and your nose and mouth are part of it too. This means your skull helps you see, hear, smell, taste, and breathe!
Did you know your skull helps you make faces? The muscles in your face attach to your skull. This lets you smile, frown, and show how you feel. Without a skull, your face wouldn’t be able to move like it does!
Humans aren’t the only ones with skulls. Many animals have them too! Birds, reptiles, fish, and mammals all have skulls. These skulls protect their brains just like ours do. But animal skulls can look very different. Some are long, some are short, and some have special features.
For example, did you know dolphins have their nostrils on top of their heads? It’s called a blowhole, and it’s how they breathe when they come up to the surface of the water. By looking at a dolphin’s skull, you can see where their blowhole is!
Learning about skulls is fascinating. Scientists can tell which animal a skull belongs to just by looking at it. You can try this too! Look at where the eyes are. Are they in front or on the sides? This can tell you if the animal is a hunter or if it needs to watch out for danger.
So, the skull is an amazing part of our body. It keeps our brain safe, helps us see and hear, and even lets us make funny faces. Next time you think of a skull, remember all the cool things it does for us and animals too!
Thanks for learning with me today. Stay curious, and keep exploring the mysteries around you!
Skull Model Craft: Create a simple model of a human skull using clay or playdough. Try to include the different parts like the eye sockets, nose, and jaw. Once your model is ready, discuss with a friend or family member how each part of the skull helps protect important parts of your body.
Animal Skull Detective: Look at pictures of different animal skulls online or in books. Choose two animals and compare their skulls. What differences do you notice? Think about why these differences might exist. For example, how does the shape of a bird’s skull help it fly or a fish’s skull help it swim?
Facial Expression Game: Stand in front of a mirror and make different facial expressions like smiling, frowning, or looking surprised. Notice how your face changes. Talk about how the muscles in your face work with your skull to create these expressions. Try to guess what expressions your friends or family members are making and discuss how the skull helps in forming these expressions.
Sure! Here’s a sanitized version of the transcript:
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(ringing) – Hi, it’s Doug. Have you ever had an X-ray taken before? Maybe you’ve seen an X-ray of your teeth when you go to the dentist, or if you’ve broken a bone, you get an X-ray done and see what part of your skeleton looks like. Well, someone named Kien has a question about this bone right here. Let’s give him a call now. (ringing) – Hi, Doug. – Hi, Kien! – I have a question for you. What would happen if we didn’t have a skull? – Ooh, that’s a great question. The skull. It might be the most recognizable bone of our skeleton. Technically, it’s not just one bone, but many separate bones that fuse together while we’re still babies. And, of course, the skull is a symbol that lots of people use to represent spookiness, like you see on Halloween or a pirate flag, or as a symbol that stands for death and those who have died, like you see if you celebrate Dia de los Muertos. While you might find it frightening to think of things like that, keep in mind a skull is not just something that a dead skeleton has. Each of us has a skull in our heads right now, as living, breathing human beings. You can even feel it. So there’s a positive side to skulls, all the great things a skull does for us. Can you think of some ways the skull is an important part of your body? There’s more than one way. Before I say anything more, it might be fun for you to pause the video and discuss. Okay, you ready? One of the best ways to figure out what the skull does is to do a little thought experiment. Just think for a moment. What if you didn’t have a skull? One thing you might think of right away is that there would be absolutely nothing to protect your brain. Your brain is one of the most important organs in your body; you could say the most important, even. It controls every other part of your body. It’s where you think and process all of the information that comes from your senses. Yet the brain is an incredibly soft part of your body. Having a skull acts like a natural helmet that protects your brain from getting bumped or damaged from everyday movements you might do. But that’s not the only thing your skull does for you. Think about some of the other parts of your head. Your skull has two round holes that hold and protect your eyes. On either side of the skull are two round holes that protect all of the inner parts involved in your sense of hearing. And don’t forget: your skull is home to your sense of smell, as well as your mouth. That includes your tongue and your sense of taste and your teeth for grinding and chewing food. And that’s not even including the fact that it’s from these holes in your skull that you’re able to take in air you need to breathe, as well as food and water. But even this isn’t everything your skull does for you. When we look at a picture of a skull, where we’re just seeing the bone, it’s really easy to forget another important thing your skull does for you. But if we add in an illustration of what sits on top of the bone, the muscles in your face, oh yeah. Without a skull, none of those muscles in your face would have anywhere to sit. In fact, all of them are attached to different parts of your skull. It’s these muscles that allow you to open your jaw, raise your eyebrow, smile, frown, or show someone anything you’re feeling. So while the skull may be a symbol of death and spookiness, the skull we each have in our head is pretty awesome and useful. And that’s not just true for us either. Lots of animals have skulls too. Any animal that has a skeleton has a skull. Birds have skulls, reptiles have skulls, fish, amphibians, and all of the mammals too. All of these animals have brains, and just like us, their skull protects their brain. That’s something all of our skulls have in common. But the skulls of animals can look really different from one another. Some are long, some are short, some are gigantic, and some are pointy and sharp. In fact, scientists can know exactly which animal a skull came from just by looking at it closely. Learning to do that can take years of practice. But even just a few simple observations of animal skulls can teach you some really interesting things. For example, check this out. Are the eye sockets facing forward on the skull or are they on the sides of the skull? That can tell you whether it’s the skull of a predator animal, like a mountain lion, or the skull of a prey animal, like a deer, whose eyes are on the side of its head, so that it can be on the lookout for animals that might want to hunt it. Or, check out this skull. Can you guess what animal this one belongs to? Here is something especially interesting about this skull. It’s got a snout, but notice there’s no holes in the end of the snout. There’s no nostrils there. So, does this animal not have a nose? It does. Look instead on the top of its skull. Now, you see two holes there? That’s its nostrils. It’s the skull of a dolphin. You might have heard before that dolphins have a hole in the top of their head. It’s their blowhole. Dolphins are mammals. They have to come up to the surface of the water to breathe. So do whales too. A whale has a blowhole as well. By looking at the skull of a dolphin or a whale, you can discover that the blowhole is actually their nostrils. They don’t have nostrils at the tip of their snout. Instead, their nostrils are on the top of their heads. So in summary, a skull is an incredibly important part of the body, both for animals and for people. Without a skull, not only would you have no protection for your brain, you’d also have no home for so many of your senses or for the muscles that control all of your facial expressions. That’s all for this week’s question. Thanks, Kien, for asking it. Now, after this video is done playing, my friends and I here at Mystery Science have created a special activity where you can learn more about your own skull and create a paper skull mask. I hope you’ll try it. Okay, for the next episode, I reached into my question jar and picked out three questions sent into us that I’m thinking about answering next. When this video is done playing, you’ll get to vote on one. You can choose from: could a mountain turn into a volcano, who invented email, or why don’t shadows have color? So submit your vote when the video is over. I want to hear from all of you watching. There are mysteries all around us. Stay curious, and see you next week.
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