A Guide to Studying the Skeletal System for Students of Anatomy and Physiology
The human skeletal system is very easy to learn because they are accessible. You can touch and break most of your bones. If you simply memorize these bones, chances are you will forget them in a while, but not so if you attach meaning to the bones you are learning about. Here are some creative suggestions that will help you learn about the different bones in our body.
These ideas, however, are not meant to replace studying our textbook or attending class and paying attention to your teacher.
But you can still be creative in studying them by following these ideas below.
One idea is to paint corresponding bones on a t-shirt or a pair of leggings. Another idea is to get some body paint and accentuate and label some bones right on your skin. The bones of the skull can be marked on your face using eyebrow pencil or any kind of makeup.
Painting bones on each other while studying can be helpful, then take photo shots of the bones so that you can share it with your classmates.
You can make up rhymes or cute saying from the bones.
One saying can go, “My femur is horizontal when I’m a dreamer.”
The mandible is for chewing and a saying can go, “MAN Did I blow a big bubBLE” Where the caps spell the bone.
“The fibula is on the side of like a Jibula.” Where a jib is on the side of the main sail, just like the fibula is on the side of the tibia.
The word ‘parietal’ contains the word ‘pair’ and there are a pair of them. This lies on the tallest spot of your body which is the head, so it ends in ‘tal.’
You can also think of what the bones may remind you of based on their shape, and in relation to what they are used for.
For example a scapula looks a bit like a wing and is in fact involved in raising your arms.
Think of you skull as a cave where a bat lives; this bat looks like your sphenoid bone.
You can also animate your bones. Make a script where the bones are arguing about what to do next. Make sure that the bones in your script tell us what they do so that you can pinpoint their place in the body. Make friends from your study group reach through the script or perform and record your creation.
Using pasta for different categories of bones is also something you can use to as a learning tool. Long bones can be represented by penne pasta, seasmoid bones by macaroni, and flat bones by broken lasagna. When you have gathered your pasta, paste them onto a human shaped board and then put the names of the bones on it.
