B2 The structure of bones

• Biologie
• Middelbare school
• havo
• Leerjaar 1

The structure of bones

Learning objectives

 You can describe the structure of bone tissue and cartilage tissue.

You can describe how the composition of the bones changes during a person’s life.

Bones and cartilage

In our skeletal system we have 2 types of tissue: 

Bone and cartilage 

bone

bone

cartilage

cartilage

Structure of bones

Bones consist mainly of calcium phosphate and collagen.

Let's see if we can find out more about calcium phosphate and collagen. 

Practical activity

What happens when we try to bend a
bone from which calcium phosphate
has been removed?

What happens when we try to bend a
bone from which collagen
has been removed?

Calcium phosphate makes
the bone tissue ......

Collagen keeps the bone tissue
a bit.....

Changes of bone tissue

The skeleton of a baby consists mostly of cartilage tissue.

During growth, most of the cartilage changes to bone.

When you get older:

--> Amount of collagen decreases

--> amount of calcium phosphate increases

baby is flexible because .....

Old people break bones easier because.....

Where do bones mostly consist of?

1. Collagen and calcium phosphate
2. Cartilage and calcium phosphate
3. cartilage
4. collagen

Do the bones of older people have more collagen?

1. yes
2. no

Do the bones of babies have more calcium phosphate?

1. yes
2. no

Cartilage has more collagen than calcium phosphate. This makes cartilage ...

1. flexible
2. strong

What material is in a nose?

1. Cartilage
2. Bone

What makes bone tissue strong?

1. collagen
2. calcium phosphate
3. cartilage

Exercise time!