← Back to course
Cells and Systems 6-8 / Week 05 / Thursday
4/6
Week 05 · Cells to Tissues to Organs

Thursday

Reading a pulse table
// Levels of organization in a living body
⏱ about 20 min

Thursday: Reading a Pulse Table

Raven spreads a printed table on the Windowsill. Each row names an age and gives two numbers.

"Newborns, 70 to 190," she reads. "Children ten and older, and adults, 60 to 100. What do you notice?"

Rocket runs his finger down the rows. "The numbers get smaller as people get older."

"Every row has a range, not one number," Raven says. "A whole stretch counts as usual."

Nova hovers over the bottom row. "Read the last line," she says. "Something is odd about it."

"Well-trained athletes, 40 to 60," Rocket reads. "Lower than everyone. Their hearts beat less at rest?"

"Their hearts are muscle that trains," Raven says. "Now read the rest, scientist."

A table from the National Library of Medicine

The National Library of Medicine publishes a medical encyclopedia for the public. One page describes the pulse.

It lists the usual range of a resting heart rate for different ages. Here are its rows.

A range means a stretch of numbers, not one number. Any count inside the stretch is usual for that age group.

Remember that a count you take at the Windowsill is a science reading. The table is for understanding data, not for checking anyone.

Age groupResting heart rate (beats per minute)
Newborns, 0 to 1 month old70 to 190
Infants, 1 to 11 months old80 to 160
Children 1 to 2 years old80 to 130
Children 3 to 4 years old80 to 120
Children 5 to 6 years old75 to 115
Children 7 to 9 years old70 to 110
Children 10 years and older, and adults60 to 100
Well-trained athletes40 to 60
USE THE TABLE
  • Read the question.
  • Tap your answer.
Which age group has the widest range in the table?
As the age groups get older, what happens to the resting heart rate ranges?
A resting count of 65 beats per minute falls inside which row?
Well-trained athletes have a lower resting range. Which tissue has trained?
The resting range for children 10 and older, and adults, is 60 to ____ beats per minute.
The resting range for well-trained athletes is 40 to ____ beats per minute.
The newborn range runs from 70 to ____ beats per minute.

What a range tells you

A range gives room for many different people. No single person is the table.

A range is wide because people differ. Your own count may land anywhere inside it, or outside it.

That is why Wednesday asked for ten minutes of sitting before counting. The method has to match the table's method.

The encyclopedia says a resting heart rate is counted after at least ten minutes of rest. Your Log follows the same rule.

StatementTrue or false?
A range gives a stretch of usual numbers, not one exact number.?
Newborns have a lower resting heart rate range than adults.?
A range gives room for many different people, not one.?
A resting heart rate is counted right after exercise.?
WHY THIS EXERCISEScientists trust a table only when they know how its numbers were collected.
How many rows in the table are about children, counting the row for children 10 and older? Type a number.
WHY THIS EXERCISECounting rows is the first step in reading any data table.
AGE GROUPS FROM HIGHEST RANGE TO LOWEST
  • Tap a card.
  • Then tap its spot.
1Highest
2Next
3Next
4Lowest
Try it
Look at your Wednesday resting number. Find the row for your age group.
Write in your Log whether your count fell inside the range, below it or above it. Any answer is a science result.
If you counted for only 15 seconds, check that you multiplied by 4.
Draw a number line from 40 to 190. Mark the adult range and the athlete range as two bars.

Excellent data reading. Tomorrow you will find the ladder of levels in a leaf, a stomach and a forest.

← Wednesday