Good Learning Co.
SavannahYear 8
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ScienceHow animal bodies work30 min★★★ difficulty

Skeletons and muscles: cheetah, elephant, snow leopard

A skeleton does four jobs at once: support, protection, movement and making blood cells. Compare a cheetah, an elephant and a snow leopard and you can see each job pushed to its limit.

Lesson overview

What you'll learn in this lesson

Understand the structure and functions of the human skeletal and muscular systems

Key learning points

  • • Four jobs, one framework
  • • Muscles pull in pairs
  • • Built for one job: the cheetah
  • • Built for a different job: elephant and snow leopard

This lesson at a glance

  • 30 minutes
  • 18 parts to scroll through
  • 4 quick checks
  • Marked quiz at the end
  • Gentle pace: short sittings with pauses

Words to know

structurefunctionsskeletalmuscularsystems

Scroll down — the lesson carries on below

Part 1 of 18 · Discover6%
1

Watch & discover

Part 1 of 18

Watch first

Skeletons and muscles: cheetah, elephant, snow leopard

An English teaching video on this topic from Little School. Watch it, then scroll down for the lesson.

In a nutshell

Understand the structure and functions of the human skeletal and muscular systems

2

What you already know

Part 2 of 18

Before we start

What you already know

You should already know that bones meet at joints, and that muscles pull rather than push.

3

Key words

Part 3 of 18

Key words

Words you'll need today

Antagonistic pair
Two muscles that pull a joint in opposite directions.
Tendon
Strong tissue joining muscle to bone.
Ligament
Tissue joining bone to bone at a joint.
Cartilage
Smooth, slippery tissue that cushions the ends of bones.
Flexible spine
A backbone that bends, storing and releasing energy in a stride.
4

Learning cycle

Part 4 of 18

Learning cycle 1 of 2

What a skeleton is for

A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.

5

Explore the idea

Part 5 of 18

Learn

Four jobs, one framework

The skeleton supports the body against gravity, protects organs such as the brain, heart and lungs, provides anchor points so muscles can move it, and makes red and white blood cells in the marrow of long bones. Every animal skeleton is a different balance of the same four jobs.

6

Explore the idea

Part 6 of 18

Learn

Muscles pull in pairs

Muscle tissue can only shorten, so joints need antagonistic pairs. In your arm, the biceps contracts to bend the elbow while the triceps relaxes; to straighten it, the roles swap. Tendons carry that pull to the bone, ligaments hold the joint together, and cartilage stops bone grinding on bone.

7

Quick check

Part 7 of 18

Quick check

Which pair of jobs are both done by the skeleton?

8

Reset break

Part 8 of 18

Pause

That's sitting 1 of 2 done

Stretch, get a drink, look out of the window. There is no timer and nothing is counting down — your place is saved, so you can come back in five minutes or tomorrow.

Stop here for now
9

Quick check

Part 9 of 18

Quick check

The biceps contracts. What happens at the elbow?

10

Learning cycle

Part 10 of 18

Learning cycle 2 of 2

Reading a skeleton like a specialist

A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.

11

Explore the idea

Part 11 of 18

Learn

Built for one job: the cheetah

A cheetah's spine flexes so far that its hind feet land ahead of its front feet, adding stride length rather than just leg speed. Its shoulder blades are barely attached to a collarbone, and semi-retractable claws work like sprint spikes. The trade-off is a light frame that loses fights with bigger predators.

12

Explore the idea

Part 12 of 18

Learn

Built for a different job: elephant and snow leopard

An elephant's legs sit almost vertically under its body, like columns, because they carry mass rather than generate speed. A snow leopard's tail is nearly as long as its body and its hind limbs are unusually long, giving balance and leaping power on steep, loose ground. Same four jobs, different priorities.

13

Quick check

Part 13 of 18

Quick check

Why do a cheetah's hind feet land ahead of its front feet at full speed?

14

Quick check

Part 14 of 18

Quick check

An elephant's near-vertical legs are best explained as an adaptation for

15

Common mix-ups

Part 15 of 18

Common mix-ups

Things people often get wrong

  • Muscles never push — the opposite muscle of the pair does the return pull.
  • Tendons and ligaments are not the same thing: muscle-to-bone versus bone-to-bone.
  • A flexible spine is not weakness; in sprinting animals it adds stride length.
16

Challenge round

Part 16 of 18

Game · Sort it

Which of these are true?

Drag each card into the right column. Tap a card first if dragging is fiddly.

True

Not true

17

Mastery quiz

Part 17 of 18

Marked quiz

End of lesson quiz: Skeletons and muscles: cheetah, elephant, snow leopard

6 questions, marked with the reasoning shown. No timer.

  1. 1. Ligaments join

  2. 2. Cartilage at a joint mainly

  3. 3. Blood cells are made in

  4. 4. An antagonistic pair is needed because muscles can only

  5. 5. A snow leopard's very long tail chiefly provides

  6. 6. Which is a trade-off of the cheetah's light skeleton?

18

Lesson round-up

Part 18 of 18

Lesson round-up

Ready when you are

Quiz score

Not sat

Games

Not played

Points this lesson

0

Best run

0 in a row

Luna: 0 out of 4 on the practice checks. Only if you feel up to it — one more?

Ask Luna

Do the work

Your written work for this lesson

This is the part you'd do in your book at school. Pick the pieces below, write here or on paper, and photograph anything you draw or work out.

Case study

Why the school greenhouse failed

A science club grew tomato plants in the school greenhouse. In June the plants grew well: leaves were dark green and the fruit set quickly. In July the club went away for two weeks and left the greenhouse door shut. When they came back, the leaves were curled and pale and most of the fruit had dropped.

The club had a data logger inside. It showed the temperature reached 46 °C on several afternoons and the soil moisture fell close to zero. The club knew photosynthesis needs light, water and carbon dioxide, and that enzymes in a plant work best in a narrow range of temperature. Above that range the enzymes stop working properly.

The club repeated the summer with the door propped open and a water bottle drip on each pot. Temperature peaked at 31 °C and the plants survived.

Written for Good Learning Co.

Reading questions

  1. Name the variable the club changed the second time, and one variable they kept the same.
  2. Explain, using the words photosynthesis and enzymes, why the plants were damaged in July.
  3. Write a conclusion for the club's report, saying how far the evidence supports it.

  • Method and results

    Writing

    Write the aim, what you changed, what you measured and what you kept the same, then record your results in a table.

    1 page + results table

  • Conclusion

    Writing

    Explain what your results show and why, using the scientific words from the lesson. Say how you know you can trust them.

    6–8 sentences

  • Labelled diagram

    Diagram

    Draw the apparatus or the process in pencil, label it fully, and photograph it.

    1 labelled diagram

  • Reading and notes

    Reading

    Read the lesson text again and write the key ideas in your own words.

    Half a page of notes

Saved as you type.

Part 1 of 18 · Watch & discover

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