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Science / Life science / Grade 6 / sl6k1

Kidneys: Filter Is Not Discard

Separate the first filtering step from returning useful substances to blood.

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In this simplified normally functioning model, water and small dissolved substances pass from blood into a nephron tubule. Blood cells and larger proteins remain in blood. Needed substances and much water return from tubule fluid to blood; additional wastes can move the other way. Remaining fluid and wastes become urine.

Worked example

Water passes the first filter into tubule fluid. Some of that water returns to blood. The first crossing alone does not prove it will leave the body in urine.

One arrow carries needed substances from tubule fluid to nearby blood; another carries additional wastes in the opposite direction. Remaining fluid and wastes become urine.
Returning and removing have different arrow directions.

The museum has two arrow labels

Arrow P follows a small useful dissolved substance from blood through the first filter into a tubule. Arrow Q follows that substance from tubule fluid back to nearby blood. A blood cell stays in a blood vessel at the first filter. Read each arrow direction. This is a paper model, not a personal health test; no samples or measurements are needed.

Question 1 Which arrow represents reabsorption in the passage?
Question 2 What does the small useful substance crossing at P prove?
Question 3 What happens to the blood cell at the first filter in this model?
Question 4 Which statement explains why a kitchen sieve is an incomplete model?
Question 5 Which vessel carries blood out of a kidney?