A major function of the kidney is conservation of water by increasing the solute concentration in the urine. This is accomplished by the action of about a million nephrons working together with their attached collecting ducts. The animation allows students to see how sodium transport allows water to be removed from urine through osmosis.
Type of Material:
Interactive animation
Recommended Uses:
Out of class review
Technical Requirements:
HTML
Identify Major Learning Goals:
Help students to understand the underlying concept of urine concentration by breaking the process down into its three essential steps.
Target Student Population:
High school, college undergraduate.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:
Students should be familiar with basic anatomy of the nephron
Content Quality
Rating:
Strengths:
Illustrates a complex physiological process
Students have some control over the animation
Concerns:
The information provided isn’t contextualized, beyond the short phrases that accompany the animation. For example, students may be confused by the process beginning in the ascending loop. The connection between the steps is not stated, and the animation uses very general terminology (e.g. “salt” instead of “sodium,” no mention on the loop of Henle, etc. )
Would be better if students could change salt concentration in nephron or other parameters other than animation speed
Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool
Rating:
Strengths:
This animation may help students understand the different areas of the nephron and which processes occur in each, at a very basic level
allows students time to explore basic principles of how the nephron works
Instructors could create assignments based on the model
Concerns:
This material would need to be heavily contextualized for use in most college-level courses. The animation explains that water leaves the nephron in the descending loop of Henle and in the collecting duct, and that sodium leaves in the ascending loop. It does not explain how or why this happens.
No assignments are provided, instructors would have to develop these
Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty
Rating:
Strengths:
The animation has very clear instructions for use
Allows students to navigate forwards/backwards and to increase/decrease the speed of the animation
Easy to use, runs smoothly, loads quickly
Concerns:
The appearance is very dated (copyright on the site says 2000)
The actual mechanisms by which these processes happen is not illustrated
The controls that allow for x frames/second, jump to the beginning/end, etc clutter the page and make it confusing. The word “run” is used rather than “start” or something similar, which is not intuitive for most students.
Not many variables for students to modify
Other Issues and Comments:
None.
Creative Commons:
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