Would you believe tortillas, sugar wafers, peach and strawberry jelly, and licorice?  Not really!  We discovered that almost every bone in your body is made of the same materials:

• The outer surface of bone is called the periosteum (say: pare-ee-OSS-tee-um). It’s a thin, dense membrane that contains nerves and blood vessels that nourish the bone.
• The next layer is made up of compact bone. This part is smooth and very hard. It’s the part you see when you look at a skeleton.
• Within the compact bone are many layers of cancellous (say: KAN-sell-us) bone, which is also called the spongy because it looks a bit like a sponge. Cancellous bone is not quite as hard or heavy as compact bone, but it is still very strong.
• In many bones, the cancellous bone protects the innermost part of the bone, the bone marrow. Bone marrow is sort of like a thick jelly.  There are two types of bone marrow: red and yellow bone marrow.  Red bone marrow is where red blood cells, platelets and white blood cells are created.  The function of yellow bone marrow is to store fat and produce red blood cells during life-threatening situations.

We created our own bones, ours were quite delicious.  We used tortillas for the periosteum, Lady Fingers for the compact bone and sugar wafers for the spongy bone.  The bone marrow was represented by peach and strawberry jelly,  Our nerves were string licorice. There’s nothing better than an anatomy snack!