Circulatory System Activity: 8 Hands-On Stations for Teaching the Heart, Arteries, Veins, and Capillaries (TEKS 7.13A)

Chris Kesler · 8 min read

Ask a 7th grader to point to where their heart is. Most of them point to the left side of their chest. It's actually closer to the center, just slightly tilted left, and roughly the size of their fist. That fist-sized muscle pumps about 2,000 gallons of blood every day, beats around 100,000 times before they go to bed tonight, and pushes blood through 60,000 miles of arteries, veins, and capillaries. Tell them that and watch their face.

The Circulatory System is the system kids think they understand because they can feel their pulse. They know the heart pumps blood. They've heard the words "arteries" and "veins" since elementary school. But ask them which one carries oxygen-rich blood, where pulmonary circulation actually goes, or what a capillary does, and the surface knowledge falls apart fast.

The Circulatory System Functions Station Lab for TEKS 7.13A closes that gap in one to two class periods. Kids build a full-body string model of arteries (red) and veins (blue) on poster paper, trace pulmonary and systemic circulation through the heart, study a heart-rate graph for six different activities (sleeping, resting, moderate and intense exercise), and learn the function of every part. By the end, they can describe the journey of a red blood cell from the right atrium to the lungs and back out to the toes.

⏱ 1–2 class periods 📓 7th Grade Science 🧪 TEKS 7.13A 🎯 Built-in differentiation 💻 Print or Digital

8 hands-on stations for teaching the circulatory system

A station lab is a student-led activity where small groups rotate through 8 stations (plus a 9th challenge station for early finishers) at their own pace during one to two class periods. You become a facilitator instead of a lecturer. You walk around, spot-check the string models, and break misconceptions while kids work through the rotation.

The Circulatory System Functions Station Lab has four input stations (where students take in new info on the heart, arteries, veins, capillaries, and pulmonary versus systemic circulation) and four output stations (where they show what they learned). Here's what's at each one.

📷 Image slot 1 — add screenshot

📷 Image slot 2 — add screenshot

4 input stations: how students learn the circulatory system

🎬 Watch It! —

A short YouTube video walks students through how the heart works and the history of how scientists figured it out. Three questions follow: why was it so difficult to study the heart in the past, what are the two main arteries of the heart, and what do the ventricular valves do. Visual learners come alive at this station before they ever pick up a piece of red string.

📖 Read It! —

A one-page passage called "Exploring Our Circulatory System" introduces the heart as the pump, the difference between arteries (oxygen-rich blood out) and veins (oxygen-poor blood back), the role of capillaries, and the conditions that affect circulation (arrhythmia and plaque buildup leading to heart disease). Three multiple-choice questions follow plus five vocabulary words to define. Comes in two reading levels (Dependent and Modified) plus a Spanish version.

🔬 Explore It! —

This is the heart of the lab. Students build a full-body circulatory model on large paper. Part 1: use red string for arteries (Carotid, Subclavian, Brachial, Femoral) flowing out from the heart toward the brain, arms, and legs. Part 2: use blue string for veins (Superior and Inferior Vena Cava, Jugular, Subclavian, Femoral) returning to the heart from the same areas. Part 3: place arrows on the strings to show direction of flow. Three reflection questions wrap it up. The kids finish with a poster they can pin to the wall and a permanent mental map of where every major vessel runs.

💻 Research It! —

Students examine 10 reference cards: a labeled heart diagram (right and left atrium, right and left ventricle, vena cava, aorta, pulmonary artery, pulmonary vein, valves), a step-by-step diagram of pulmonary circulation, the same for systemic circulation, an explanation of heart rate, descriptions of six different activities (resting, sleeping, moderate exercise, intense exercise, immediately after exercise, deep breathing), and a bar graph showing average heart rates for each (50–160 BPM range). Four questions check whether they can identify where pulmonary ends and systemic begins, compare the two circulations, describe how exercise affects heart rate, and use the graph to figure out which activity matches "watching a scary movie."

📷 Featured station deep-dive — add screenshot of the Explore It! task card

4 output stations: how students show what they learned

📋 Organize It! —

A three-column card sort. Kids match each component (heart, arteries, veins, capillaries) with its function and its diagram. "Pumps oxygenated blood to the body and deoxygenated blood to the lungs" → heart. "Tiny blood vessels where oxygen, nutrients, and wastes are exchanged" → capillaries. Easy to spot-check at a glance.

🎨 Illustrate It! —

Students sketch the human circulatory system with the heart at the center and two loops branching out: pulmonary circulation in red, systemic circulation in blue. They label heart, pulmonary circulation, systemic circulation, arteries, veins, capillaries, oxygen-rich blood, and carbon-dioxide-rich blood. Even kids who say "I can't draw" surprise themselves here. The drawing locks in the two-loop structure that's easy to miss when you're just reading about it.

✍️ Write It! —

Three open-ended questions: explain the circulatory system in your own words, describe the role of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the system, and trace the journey of a red blood cell starting in the heart, going to the lungs, then to the body, and back. The third question is the killer. It forces kids to chain together everything from the lab into one continuous story.

📝 Assess It! —

Three multiple-choice questions plus a fill-in-the-paragraph that uses all five Read It! vocabulary words (heart, arteries, circulatory system, veins, capillaries). The paragraph reads like a quick story: "The ___ pumps oxygen-rich blood through ___ to all parts of the body, which is part of the ___..." If you're grading the lab, this is the easiest station to grade.

Bonus Challenge It! station for early finishers

🏆 Challenge It! —

Four optional extensions: build a 2D, 3D, or digital model of the circulatory system, make flashcards for at least 10 vocabulary terms, design a stopwatch experiment to measure how heart rate changes after jumping jacks or running in place, or explore the InnerBody.com cardiovascular simulation and write down 5 arteries or veins they discover. Requires teacher approval before they start.

How this fits into a complete circulatory system unit

This Station Lab is the Explore day of our full Circulatory System Functions Complete 5E Lesson for TEKS 7.13A. The complete two-week unit follows the 5E method of instruction and includes an Engage hook, the Circulatory System Station Lab for Explore, PowerPoint slides and interactive notebook pages for Explain, student choice projects to Elaborate, and an Evaluate assessment.

Most teachers grab the full 5E because the Station Lab lands hardest with the days around it. But if you just need a strong hands-on day on the circulatory system, the Station Lab on its own does the job.

Two options

Full 5E Lesson $13.20 Get the 5E Lesson

Just the Station Lab $7.20 Get the Station Lab

Materials needed to teach the circulatory system

Materials beyond what's in the download:

Red and blue yarn or string — about 5 feet of each color per group. Red for arteries, blue for veins.
Large butcher paper or poster paper — one sheet per group rotation for the body outline.
Tape or glue for sticking down the string.
Index cards for the Challenge It! flashcard extension.
A stopwatch (or phone timer) if students choose the heart-rate experiment in Challenge It!
Colored pencils or markers for the Illustrate It! station (red and blue minimum).
Pencils and the printed answer sheets (included)
A device with internet for the Watch It! station and the InnerBody.com Challenge It! option

Standard covered: Texas TEKS 7.13A —

Investigate and explain the functions of the circulatory, respiratory, digestive, urinary, immune, integumentary, nervous, muscular, skeletal, reproductive, and endocrine systems. Supporting Standard.

See the full standard breakdown →

Grade level: 7th grade life science

Time: One to two class periods (45–110 minutes total). Plan for two periods the first time you run a station lab.

Common student misconceptions this lab fixes

"Arteries always carry oxygen-rich blood and veins always carry oxygen-poor blood."
This is the rule kids learn first, and it's mostly right except for one big exception: pulmonary circulation. The pulmonary artery carries oxygen-poor blood from the heart to the lungs, and the pulmonary vein carries oxygen-rich blood from the lungs back to the heart. The Research It! pulmonary circulation card walks through this directly. The better rule, which the lab teaches, is: arteries carry blood AWAY from the heart, veins carry blood BACK to the heart. Direction, not oxygen content. The string model in Explore It! reinforces this because students physically place arrows on every vessel.
"The heart only has one job — pumping blood through the body."
Kids picture one loop: heart pushes blood out, body uses it, blood comes back. The Research It! cards split the system into two distinct loops. Pulmonary circulation: right side of the heart pushes oxygen-poor blood to the lungs, and oxygen-rich blood returns to the left side. Systemic circulation: left side pushes oxygen-rich blood to the body, and oxygen-poor blood returns to the right side. The Illustrate It! station forces them to draw both loops side by side. Once they see the heart as two coordinated pumps doing two different jobs, the second-grade "heart pumps blood" picture upgrades to the real thing.
"Capillaries are just smaller versions of arteries and veins."
Kids treat capillaries as decoration on the diagram. The Read It! passage names the actual job: their thin walls allow the exchange of nutrients, oxygen, and waste between the blood and the tissues. That's where the whole system pays off. The Organize It! card sort makes it concrete by matching capillaries with the function "tiny blood vessels where oxygen, nutrients, and wastes are exchanged." The string model in Explore It! doesn't show capillaries, which actually drives the question "where do the red and blue strings meet up?" The answer is: in the capillaries, where the actual gas exchange happens.

What you get with this circulatory system activity

📷 Inside-the-product — add screenshot of Read It passage or sample answer sheet

When you buy the Station Lab, you get a single download with everything you need:

Print version at two reading levels (Dependent for on-grade, Modified for additional support) plus a Spanish Read It! passage
Digital version as PowerPoint files (works in Google Slides too) at both levels — for 1:1 classrooms or Google Classroom
Teacher Directions and Answer Key for both versions, all keys included
Station task cards ready to print, laminate, and drop in baskets at each station
Reference cards for the Research It! station (heart diagram from front, pulmonary circulation diagram, systemic circulation diagram, heart-rate graph for six activities)
Sort cards for the Organize It! station (12 cards matching each component to its function and diagram)
Body outline and arrow cutouts for the Explore It! string-modeling activity
Student answer sheets for each level

No login required. Download once, use forever. Reprint as many times as you want.

Tips for teaching the circulatory system in your 7th grade classroom

Two things make this lab go smoother the first time:

1. Pre-cut string to length and have a clear difference between red and blue.

If kids have to share scissors and measure as they go, you lose 5 minutes per group at the Explore It! station. Pre-cut about 12 pieces of red string and 12 pieces of blue string in roughly 10–25 cm lengths and drop them in two cups at the station. Skinny red yarn (or thread) and chunky blue yarn (or vice versa) works well so colorblind students can tell them apart by texture, not just color.

2. Have students take their own pulse before they leave.

Before kids start, walk them through finding a pulse on the wrist or neck and counting beats for 15 seconds (then multiply by 4). Have them write the number on the board next to their name. After lab cleanup, have them re-take the pulse. The numbers usually go up because they've been moving around. It's a no-prep, 60-second formative assessment that ties straight into the heart-rate graph in Research It! and the Challenge It! mini-experiment.

Get this circulatory system activity

Circulatory System Functions Station Lab for 7th grade life science — TEKS 7.13A

Buy the Station Lab — $7.20

Or if you want the full two-week experience with the Engage hook, Explain day, Elaborate extension, and Evaluate assessment all included:

Buy the full 5E Complete Lesson — $13.20

(Station Lab is included)

Frequently asked questions

What does TEKS 7.13A cover?

Texas TEKS 7.13A asks 7th grade students to investigate and explain the functions of all the major body systems, including the circulatory system. By the end, students should be able to describe the role of the heart as the pump, distinguish arteries from veins by direction of blood flow, explain what capillaries do, and trace the path of pulmonary and systemic circulation. This Station Lab focuses specifically on the circulatory system. The other body systems (respiratory, digestive, urinary, immune, integumentary, nervous, muscular, skeletal, reproductive, endocrine) each have their own dedicated Station Lab.

What's the difference between pulmonary and systemic circulation?

Pulmonary circulation is the loop between the heart and the lungs. The right side of the heart pumps oxygen-poor blood to the lungs, where it picks up oxygen and drops off carbon dioxide, then returns to the left side of the heart. Systemic circulation is the loop between the heart and the rest of the body. The left side of the heart pumps oxygen-rich blood through the aorta out to every cell in the body, then oxygen-poor blood returns to the right side of the heart through the vena cava. Together, the two loops form one continuous figure-eight pattern that runs nonstop.

How long does this circulatory system activity take?

One to two class periods (45 to 110 minutes total). The Explore It! string-modeling station is the longest part, so plan for two periods the first time you run a station lab. Once your class has the routine down, most groups can finish all 8 stations in one period.

Do I need to provide my own materials?

Red and blue string or yarn, large paper, tape, index cards, and colored pencils. Total cost for a class of 30: under $10 if you don't already have these supplies. The Watch It! station also needs a device with internet, and the optional Challenge It! mini-experiment uses a stopwatch (a phone timer works fine).

Can I use this in a 1:1 digital classroom?

Yes. The full digital version (PowerPoint or Google Slides) works in 1:1 classrooms and Google Classroom. The string-modeling activity can be replaced by drag-and-drop labeled vessels in the digital version, or you can keep the Explore It! station as the one physical center kids rotate through.