Name Class Date

CHAPTER 17 Communication and Control

2 Sensing the Environment

SECTION

California Science BEFORE YOU READ

Standards
7.5.a, 7.5.b, 7.5.g, 7.6.b
After you read this section, you should be able to answer
these questions:
• How do the integumentary system and nervous
system work together?
• What is a feedback mechanism?
• How do your five senses work?

How Does Your Sense of Touch Work?

STUDY TIP When a friend taps you on the shoulder, or you feel a
List As you read, make a list breeze, how does your brain know what has happened?
of the five senses. In your list, Receptors throughout your body gather information about
include the type of receptors
used by those senses. the environment and send this information to your brain.
A tap on the shoulder and a cool breeze are both felt by
your skin. Your skin is part of the integumentary system. The
integumentary system is an organ system that protects the
body. This system also includes hair, skin, and nails.
Your skin does not just protect your body from harm,
however. It is also the main organ that helps you to feel
touch. Your skin has many different sensory receptors
that are part of the nervous system. Each kind of recep-
tor responds mainly to one kind of stimulation. For exam-
ple, thermoreceptors respond to temperature changes.
Sensory receptors detect a stimulus and create
impulses. These impulses travel to your brain. In your
brain, the impulses produce a sensation. A sensation is
the awareness that you have sensed something.

Pressure,
Light touch pain, and
and vibration heat
Pressure

TAKE A LOOK Sweat

Light
1. List What are three types touch gland
of sensations that your skin
can detect? Deep pressure
and vibration
Blood vessels

Different kinds of receptors in your skin can sense different things.

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SECTION 2 Sensing the Environment continued

REFLEXES
When you step on something sharp, do you stand still?
Of course not! You move your foot right away without
thinking about it. This reaction is called a reflex. A reflex
is an action that happens very fast and that you cannot
control.
Reflexes help protect your body from getting hurt. Say It
For example, if you step on something sharp, pain recep- Discuss With a partner,
tors in your foot send messages to your spinal cord. The name some other examples
of reflexes. What part of the
spinal cord sends a message back to move your foot. body is involved? When does
Messages that cause reflexes don’t even travel all the way the reflex happen? How does
to your brain. If you had to wait for your brain to act, you the reflex protect your body?
could be badly hurt.

FEEDBACK MECHANISMS
Reflexes are helpful to your body. However, most of
the time, the brain decides what to do with the messages
from the skin receptors. Your brain helps to control many
of your body’s functions by using feedback mechanisms.
A feedback mechanism is a cycle of events in which
one step controls or affects another step. READING CHECK
Feedback mechanisms help to keep your body 2. Complete Feedback
functioning. Below is an example of how a feedback mechanisms in your nervous
mechanism helps to keep your body temperature stable. system are controlled by the

On a hot day, heat receptors in your skin detect

.
a change in temperature.

Your brain sends messages to your sweat glands

to make sweat, and tells blood vessels to expand.

Sweat glands Blood vessels

make sweat expand.

Heat leaves
Your body cools.
the blood.

Receptors in skin detect that the body has gotten cooler.

Your brain sends messages to the sweat glands to stop

making sweat, and tells blood vessels to constrict.

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SECTION 2 Sensing the Environment continued

How Does Your Sense of Sight Work?

Sight is the sense that lets you know the size, shape,
motion, and color of objects around you. You see an object
when light bounces off the object and enters your eyes.
The light produces impulses in your eyes. These impulses
CALIFORNIA travel to the brain and produce the sensation of sight.
STANDARDS CHECK
The eyes are complex sensory organs. A clear membrane
7.5.g Students know organ
systems function because of called the cornea covers the front of the eye. The cornea pro-
the contributions of individual tects the eye but lets light enter. Light from an object enters
organs, tissues, and cells. The
failure of any part can affect the the front of your eye through an opening called the pupil.
entire system.
Then, the light travels through the lens to the back of the eye.
Word Help: affect There, the light hits the retina, a layer of light-sensitive cells.
to change; to have an effect
on; to influence

3. List Name three parts

of the eye and list their
functions.

ht
lig Retina
h ite
W
Cornea
Ora
nge Iris
ligh
t

Optic
nerve
Pupil

Lens

Carrots look orange because they reflect orange light.

The retina contains many specialized cells called photo-

receptors. A photoreceptor is a special neuron that responds
to light. It causes the other cells in the retina to produce
impulses. The brain interprets these impulses as light.
The retina has two kinds of photoreceptors: rods and
cones. Rods are very sensitive to dim light. They are impor-
tant for night vision. The brain interprets the impulses from
rods as black-and-white images. Cones are very sensitive to
READING CHECK bright light. They let you see colors and fine details.
4. Identify What are the two
The impulses from rods and cones travel along axons.
kinds of photoreceptors in These impulses leave the back of the eye through the optic
the retina? nerve. The optic nerve carries the impulses to your brain.

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SECTION 2 Sensing the Environment continued

REACTING TO LIGHT
Your pupil looks like a black dot in the center of your
eye. Actually, it is an opening that lets light enter the eye.
Around the pupil is a ring of muscle called the iris. The
iris controls how much light enters your eye. It also gives
your eye its color. READING CHECK
5. Identify What is the
function of the iris?
In bright light the iris In dim light the iris relaxes.
contracts. This makes This makes the pupil dilate,
the pupil smaller. or get larger

FOCUSING LIGHT
The lens focuses light onto the retina. The lens is an
oval-shaped piece of clear, curved material behind the
iris. The lens refracts, or bends, light. Muscles in the eye
change the shape of the lens in order to focus the light on
the retina. When you look at something that is close to
your eye, the lens becomes more curved. When you look
at objects that are far away, the lens gets flatter.
Some people have vision problems because their eyes
cannot focus light correctly. The figure below shows the
causes of some common vision problems.
In a normal eye, light
focuses onto a point on the
retina. The image is in focus. In a nearsighted eye, the light focuses
on a point in front of the retina. The
image looks blurry.
A lens that is thinner in the middle than
at the edges is a concave lens. Concave
lenses bend light outward and help to

Normal eye
correct nearsightedness. TAKE A LOOK
6. Explain Why do some
images look blurry to people
Correction with
concave lens
who are nearsighted and
farsighted?
Nearsighted eye

Correction with
convex lens

Farsighted eye

In a farsighted eye, the light A lens that is thicker in the middle than
focuses on a point behind the at the edges is a convex lens. Convex
retina. The image looks blurry. lenses bend light inward to help correct
farsightedness.

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SECTION 2 Sensing the Environment continued

How Does Your Sense of Hearing Work?

Sound is produced when something vibrates. A drum,
for example, vibrates when you hit it. Vibrations produce
waves of sound energy. Hearing is the sense that lets you
READING CHECK experience sound energy.
7. Complete Sound Ears are the organs used for hearing. The ear has three
energy is produced by main parts: the outer ear, middle ear, and inner ear. The
chart below shows the structures that make up each part.
.
Part of ear Main structures
Outer ear ear canal
Middle ear tympanic membrane, or eardrum;
three ear bones: hammer, anvil,
and stirrup
Inner ear cochlea and auditory nerve

Stirrup
Semicircular canals
Anvil

Hammer

Cochlear nerve

Ear canal
Cochlea
Ear bones
Eardrum

Sound waves

TAKE A LOOK
8. Color Use colored pencils
A sound wave travels through the air into the outer ear.
to color the outer ear blue, The wave produces vibrations in the middle ear and inner
the middle ear green, and ear. These vibrations produce impulses in the cochlear
the inner ear red. nerve that travel to the brain

Sound waves must create vibrations throughout your

ear to be interpreted by your brain as sound. The outer
ear funnels sound waves to the middle ear. Sound waves
hit the eardrum and make it vibrate. These vibrations
make the hammer, anvil, and stirrup vibrate. The stirrup
vibrates against the cochlea, an organ filled with fluid.
The vibrations make waves in the fluid. This causes neu-
rons in the cochlea to send impulses to the brain.

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SECTION 2 Sensing the Environment continued

THE EXTERNAL EAR

The part of the ear that you can see is called the
Critical Thinking
9. Explain How is the
external ear. It collects sound waves and sends them external ear different from
into your ear canal. In humans, the external ear is fixed the outer ear?
in place. However, many animals can move their external
ears around. This helps them hear sounds that are very
quiet. Moving the external ear helps some animals, such
as rabbits, know which direction a sound is coming from.

KEEPING YOUR BALANCE

Your ears let you hear, but they also help you keep
your balance. The semicircular canals, special fluid-filled
canals in your inner ear, are filled with tiny hair cells.
Fluid bends the hair cells when you move your head. This
sends impluses to your brain. The brain then uses these
READING CHECK
impulses to figure out the position of your head.
10. Identify What are two
functions of the ear?
How Does Your Sense of Taste Work?
Taste is the sense that lets you detect chemicals and
tell one flavor from another flavor. Your tongue is cov-
ered with tiny bumps called papillae (singular, papilla).
Most papillae contain taste buds. Taste buds have groups
of taste cells, which are the receptors for taste. Taste
cells respond to dissolved food molecules in your mouth.
Taste cells react to five basic tastes.
TAKE A LOOK
Taste Example 11. List Give two examples
of foods that have a mainly
Sweet sugar
salty taste. Do not use the
Sour lemons, vinegar example in the table.
Salty potato chips
Savory meats, cheeses
Bitter coffee, unsweetened chocolate

How Does Your Sense of Smell Work?

Receptors for smell are located on olfactory cells in
your nasal cavity. An olfactory cell is a nerve cell that
senses the molecules in the air. You smell something
when the receptors react to molecules you have inhaled.

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SECTION 2 Sensing the Environment continued

Brain

Olfactory
cell

Nasal
passage

Olfactory cells line the nasal cavity. These cells are

sensory receptors that react to chemicals in the air and
produce the sensation of smell.

Critical Thinking Inhaled molecules dissolve in the moist lining of

12. Apply Concepts Why do the nasal cavity and trigger an impulse. Olfactory cells
you have a hard time tasting send the impulses to the brain. The brain interprets the
things when you have a cold?
impulses as the sensation of smell.
Taste buds and olfactory cells both sense dissolved
molecules. Your brain combines the information from
your taste buds and your nose to let you sense flavor.

Sense Receptors What the receptors

respond to
Touch many different kinds

Sight

neurons in the cochlea

TAKE A LOOK
13. Summarize Complete Taste dissolved molecules
the chart to summarize the
major senses and sense olfactory cells
receptors.

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Section 2 Review 7.5.a, 7.5.b, 7.5.g, 7.6.b

SECTION VOCABULARY
cochlea a coiled tube that is found in the inner pupil the opening that is located in the center of
ear and that is essential to hearing the iris of the eye and that controls the amount
feedback mechanism a cycle of events in which of light that enters the eye
information from one step controls or affects a reflex an involuntary and almost immediate
previous step movement in response to a stimulus
integumentary system the organ system that forms retina the light-sensitive inner layer of the eye that
a protective covering on the outside of the body receives images formed by the lens and transmits
iris the colored, circular part of the eye them through the optic nerve to the brain

1. List What are the five senses?

2. Explain How do the integumentary system and nervous system work together?

3. Explain Why are reflexes important for the body?

4. Describe What are the functions of rods and cones in the retina?

5. Describe How do the lenses in your eyes change when you look at things that are
close and things that are far away?

6. Explain How do your ears help you keep your balance?

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CHAPTER 18 Reproduction and Development

1 Human Reproduction
SECTION

California Science BEFORE YOU READ

Standards
7.2.b, 7.5.a, 7.5.d
After you read this section, you should be able to answer
these questions:
• How are sperm and eggs made?
• How does fertilization occur?
• What problems can happen in the reproductive system?

What Happens in the Male

Reproductive System?
STUDY TIP The male reproductive system has two functions:
Summarize As you read,
create two process charts. In
• to make sperm
the first, describe the path an • to deliver sperm to the female reproductive system
egg takes from ovulation to
fertilization. In the second, To perform these functions, organs in the male repro-
describe the path of an egg ductive system make sperm, hormones, and fluids. The
that does not get fertilized. testes are a pair of organs that hang outside the body
covered by a skin sac called the scrotum. They make
sperm and testosterone, the main male sex hormone.
A male can make millions of sperm each day. Immature
sperm cells divide and change shape as they travel through
the testes and epididymis. The epididymis is a tube
READING CHECK attached to the testes that stores sperm as they mature.
1. Identify How many Mature sperm pass into the vas deferens, which connects
sperm can a male make in the epididymis and urethra. The urethra is a tube that runs
one day? from the bladder through the penis. The penis is the male
organ that delivers sperm to the female. Before leaving the
body, sperm mixes with a fluid mixture to form semen.
The Male Reproductive System
Vas deferens
Urinary bladder
Pubic bone

Prostate gland

Urethra

Scrotum Penis
TAKE A LOOK Epididymis
2. Circle On the diagram,
Testis
circle the structure that
makes sperm.

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