Homeostasis Lab

The purpose of this lab was to become more familiar with homeostasis and how it works with the human body.  My lab team and I decided to test how pulse reacts to skin temperature.  If the temperature of the skin was lowered, we believed the pulse would go up to keep the skin warmer but if we heated the skin then the pulse would go down to help cool it.
Seeing as I didn't have a freezer or oven big enough to stick our entire bodies in we had to settle for sticking our hands in buckets of water.
We held our temperature probe (it looked like a probe I'm calling it a probe) in one hand for one minute each and measured our pulse from our necks with our fingers for one minute.  After we had our base temperatures and pulses for comparison we stuck our hands in ice water at about 30 degrees Fahrenheit, one at a time, for one minute and then measured temperature and pulse for one minute.  Once our hands returned to normal temperature we followed the same procedure, only we stuck our hands in hot water that was around 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

This awesome graph shows all the measurements we got for pulse and temperature at normal, cold, and hot temperatures.

In the end, we determined that if you got cold your pulse would slow down, most likely to conserve heat energy to the core of the body.  And, if you got hot, your pulse would speed up to keep the core cool.  Our hypothesis was backwards but we were on the right track.
Next time, my results will be more drastic because I'll find an oven.

Homeostasis is for the living!! OKAY??!!

So stop bothering me about it already!!!!
Homeostasis is something only alive things need. Why? Well, what is it first! You have to ask questions in the right order!
Homeostasis is the process yout body uses to maintain balance. Homeostasis is anything from chemical reactions to physical changes that occur to keep the body stable.

Negative feedback is an output from your body to shut off the original stimulus, a sort of reverse trend.  Negative feedback includes anything your body does to counteract a change in your system.  If a bacteria entered your system to make you sick, negative feedback would be the immune system attacking the bacteria to keep your body stable.  Negative feedback also occurs in other, more common ways.  When you go for a run your body works to keep your internal organs cool by sending more blood to the skin.  As your muscles use energy the body breaks down foods its stored in fats and sugars to keep itself energized.  Whatever you do, your body works in an opposite way to keep your body from going into extreme conditions.
Positive feedback is when the original stimulus causes more and more response and is more often a bad thing.  Positive feedback is when something happens, and keeps happening until your body has been thrown out of balance.  Cancer works as positive feedback, the cells keep replicating and dominating the body's immune system and it doesn't get any negative feedback to deter the changes the cancer cells make by invading the body.
In the integumentary system, homeostasis would cause the body to sweat in the heat in order to keep the body cool.  In the skeletal system homeostasis would repair damaged bones, synthesize more blood from the marrow and other such things.  In the muscular system homeostasis would break down fats during a run to keep the muscles fed and energized.
Homeostasis keeps the body stable. If you get hypothermia, your pulse will slow down to conserve energy.  If you work out, your body will break down the sugars it stores for fuel.  Unless you get really sick, or start giving birth and get contractions, negative feedback will keep your body stable and maintain a healthy balance.