Which part of the living system did you change?
Labs / Biology
Nephron Filtration
Blood arrives at the glomerulus, where pressure squeezes water, glucose, salt & urea into the tubule while cells and protein stay behind. As the filtrate travels down, the body reclaims what it needs and lets the rest go. Turn the dials and watch the urine change.
Labs / Biology / Nephron Filtration
Nephron Filtration
Blood arrives at the glomerulus, where pressure squeezes water, glucose, salt & urea into the tubule while cells and protein stay behind. As the filtrate travels down, the body reclaims what it needs and lets the rest go. Turn the dials and watch the urine change.
Why it matters
Why explore this?
Living systems are connected and constantly changing. This model makes one biological process visible so you can test how its parts affect one another.
Explore
Try the model
GFR 125 mL/minGlucose 100%Urea cleared 55%Urine 1.0 mL/minConc 600 mOsm/L
Investigate
Questions to test
Predict first, try it in the model, then use what you observe to answer.
What to try
- Raise the blood pressure. Why does the filtration rate (GFR) climb, and what happens below 45 mmHg?
- Crank ADH to the max. How can the same solute end up as tiny volumes of super-concentrated urine?
- Slide ADH to zero while staying well hydrated. Where does all that reabsorbed water go instead?
- Glucose always reads 100% reclaimed. Which zone catches it, and what would happen if there were far more sugar than the tubule could grab?
- Urea is only about half cleared. Why does the body let some slip back into the blood instead of dumping it all?
Explain
Make sense of what happened
Explain the process as a chain: a change happens, the system responds, and that response affects what happens next. Use an observation from the model as evidence.
Check
Before you leave
How did the system respond?
How would you explain that response?
If you can answer all three using evidence from the model, you understand the main idea. If not, return to Explore and change one setting at a time.