Today was a day of housework. I vacuumed everywhere, cleaned the bathroom, washed the shower stall, baked some bread. And I took advantage of the sunny morning (no rain!!) to go for a 2.5k run for the first time since straining my back almost a week ago. It’s still a tiny bit sore, but 95% okay, and the physiotherapist said I should rest up for a few days but once it’s close to normal going for a run will be fine.
We all went for a big walk today, to the Italian bakery. This is the longest regular walk we do, almost 6 km round trip. A few other destinations are close to the 5 km mark. Today the bakery had the banana caramel croissants that I got once as a special item and really liked, so I grabbed another one. They are really really good.
And this evening I had two more ethics classes, and a science class with the girl who has been doing these long-term. Today I went through the immune system with her, explaining how our various blood cells fight diseases and produce immune reactions, and how vaccines work.
New content today:
Speaking as a former biology teacher, that is a *lot* of material to cover in one lesson! Just listing the various leukocytes and explaining the differences would take at least 15 minutes, and then you have to explain cell signaling to get to cytokines, you have to explain stem cells to get to bone marrow and hematopoiesis, you have ….
Yes, I’m sure you were much more superficial than that. Did you mention innate immunity? Complement? The role of physiological depletion of free iron in serum in reducing bacterial (and intracellular) growth? I can’t see how you could.
Immunology is *complex*.
Well yes, I simplified it down to suit 45 minutes with an 11-year-old. 🙂
I mentioned innate and adaptive immunity, and roughly the roles of the different types of white cells, and stem cells and (very briefly) hematopoiesis. But not cytokines or iron depletion.