Frankie’s Farting Friends- Instructor guide

Lesson Objective

Learners will learn what a fart is, which animals are able to do it, and why.

Intended Grade Level

This lesson is intended for grade levels 3-5. Prior to this lesson, students should be familiar with the basic gastrointestinal tract (GI tract) and what the word microbe means. Students should have basic knowledge of different animal species.

Minnesota State Standards met with this lesson include:

3.1.1 Students will be able to develop, revise, and use models to represent the students’ understanding of phenomena or systems as they develop questions, predictions and/or explanations, and communicate ideas to others.

3.2.1 Students will be able to apply scientific principles and empirical evidence (primary or secondary) to explain the causes of phenomena or identify weaknesses in explanations developed by the students or others.

Learning objectives

• Students will be able to explain what a fart is.
• Students will be able to explain different ways for gas to be introduced to the gut.
• Students will be able to determine which common species are able to fart and which are not.
• Students will be able to understand how and why farting is different in different animals.

Lesson Format

This lesson will take approximately 50 minutes. The lesson involves a mixture of the entire class and small group assessments. Materials needed for this lesson include computer and internet access, the student page , a latex balloon, vinegar, baking soda and an empty bottle.

Students can begin by watching the video that is a read-along of the book “Walter the Farting Dog” by William Kotzwinkle and Glenn Murray. This is a good way to get students excited about the topic.  (10 minutes).

Afterwards, students will break off into small groups to work through Frankie’s Farting Friends interactive storyline. If groups finish early print outs of different animals can be provided for students to draw what they think those animals eat. (10 minutes).

Once done with the story, students can follow along with the experiment to watch a demonstration on gas build up in the body. (10 minutes)

The assessment portion should take no longer than 10 minutes.

Once all assessments are completed, wrap up as a class to discuss if there are any of Frankie’s farm friends that the students had difficulty placing in the correct category (5 minutes).

Lesson Background

This lesson helps learners understand the causes of flatulence, and differences in flatulence between species.

Flatulence (farting) is the escape of air from the gastrointestinal (GI) tract through the rectum. There are several ways that this air can be introduced to the GI tract, and this can vary by species.

One way that air is introduced into the GI tract is through ingestion. Most commonly seen in dogs, this can occur through panting or eating too quickly.

Gas is also produced in the GI tract through digestion and/ or fermentation of ingested foods. All animals have some amount of microbes in their gut that help them digest foods and through this process gas is released into the gut. The main species differences here are where this process mainly occurs in the gut.

In cows, fermentation occurs in the foregut, specifically, the chamber of the stomach known as the rumen. As a result of this, cows are more likely to eructate than flatulate, as the majority of gas produced is closer to the mouth than the rectum.

In horses, fermentation occurs in the hindgut, or colon. Therefore, horses have frequent flatulence as most of the gas produced is near the rectum.

In carnivores, such as dogs and cats, fermentation does not occur, but microbes still aid in the digestion process. As a byproduct of microbe digestion, gas is released. This occurs throughout the intestinal tract but microbe concentration increases as you move toward the colon.

If gas is unable to be released, potentially due to some kind of obstruction, this can result in bloating, pain, and even rupture.

To fix this, surgery may be needed to relieve the obstruction, or they may need to use a needle to poke a hole in the bloated gut and relieve the pressure.

Activities

Storybook Lesson

Students will go through the storybook style lesson titled Frankie’s Farting Friends. This activity is contained within the student page for this lesson and if done individually does not require instructor time or class materials. You can modify this activity to be done with the whole class instead of individually if needed. The information that students need to receive for this lesson is all included in this activity. Other activities may be altered or omitted as necessary, but are helpful for student comprehension.

Demonstration

Students can follow along to the YouTube Experiment to watch how gas can build up by using a balloon, vinegar, baking soda and a bottle. In this experiment, the balloon and bottle represent the GI tract, vinegar represents digestive fluid and baking soda represents food. The resulting gas created represents microbes creating gas as they break down the food in the gut. After performing or watching the experiment, discuss with students what they think might happen if an animal is unable to release the gas, and what they think may be a solution. These may include the following options:

• • May cause bloating (balloon gets too full) or rupture (balloon pops)
  • Untie the knot (surgery to relieve obstruction)
  • Pop the balloon (letting air out with a needle)

Common misconceptions and challenge points

Students may struggle understanding the different types of gastrointestinal tracts. It may be beneficial to print out simple diagrams of the cow GI tract, horse GI tract, and dog GI tract to hold up so students can visualize the difference. When explaining where the microbes create the gas, point out or circle on the picture where it is being produced so they can understand the difference in relation to the mouth and the rectum and ask “which end is closer?”.

Assessment

Students will go through a game-based assessment including matching, drag and drop, and true/false questions related to the content covered in the lesson.

Further exploration

For more information on Flatulence, learners can watch these videos.

Ted Talk about flatulating by Purna Kashyap

Dr. Binocs video on flatulence

Image Use Disclaimer: 

All images used in the lesson and activities within this book were created by chapter author and are CC for NC use