Learn about skeletons and bones

Why do you need bones? Bones give your body support. Without them, you wouldn’t even be able to walk! Keep reading to find out how your bones and joints work together to allow your body to move. What Makes Bones Strong: Even though bones are very light, they are also very strong. 

However, how strong they are depends on how much of the mineral calcium carbonate they contain. Do this experiment to find out how calcium carbonate affects bone strength. Make sure you get an adult to help you!

Have you ever seen a house or a building while it is being built? If so, you may have noticed long wooden or steel beams being constructed before the outside walls are added. These beams make up the framework of the building, very much like the way that your bones form your skeleton. Both frames provide shape, strength, and protection – your bones for your body and the beams for the building. However, unlike the framework in a house, bones are alive! Your bones will continue to grow inside your body until you are around 25 years old! Bones can also repair themselves. Small cracks form in bones all the time from bumping into objects and doing strenuous activities like running and jumping. But these cracks are rarely noticed by us because they are repaired quickly by special bone cells called osteoclasts (say OS-TEE-O-CLASTS) and osteoblasts (say OS-TEE-O-BLASTS). These cells also repair major breaks in the bone. A doctor may need to help set the broken bone in place, but the bone will usually heal itself in about 6-8 weeks.

Bones are very strong, but are also amazingly lightweight! Bones are wrapped in a thin covering called the periosteum (sayPER-EE-OS-TEE-UM). The periosteum supplies nutrients to the bones to keep them strong and healthy. Beneath this is a hard layer called compact bone. It provides most of the strength for the bone. Inside the bone is a “spongy” material. It has lots of holes and gaps in it to make your bones lightweight and also allow for the production of red blood cells.