The Skull, and How You Hear

Three parts opening the head. The skull is not one bone but a case assembled from many, fused along seams, built to protect the one organ the body cannot repair — and shaped around the holes that everything entering and leaving the head has to pass through. Then the ear, traced the whole way: the funnel outside, the drum, the three smallest bones in the body amplifying the push, and the coiled cochlea that turns a vibration into something a nerve can carry. The last part is the half of the ear most people never learn they have — the loops and sacs that report which way up you are, which is why an ear infection can take your balance with it.

24 min to complete
Beginner level
3 Parts

CodePLU Goal

Upgrading Human Mental Models

Learn how to think in Workflows

One skull, many bones — label the cranium, sockets, cheekbones and jaws, and see why only one of them can move
Beginner 8 min Part 1

What Are the Main Bones of the Skull?

The skull looks like a single bone, but it is really about twenty-two locked together — with just one left free to move. Learn what each main part does, then label a skull yourself in an interactive playground.

Follow a sound on its journey from the air outside your head to a signal inside your brain — through the funnel, the drum, the tiniest bones in your body, and a spiral no bigger than a pea
Beginner 8 min Part 2

What Are the Parts of Your Ear?

Hearing is a chain of parts passing a sound along, each handing it to the next. Label the pinna, ear canal, eardrum, ossicles, cochlea and auditory nerve, and follow a sound all the way from the air outside to a signal your brain can read — in an interactive playground.

The same organ that hears also stops you falling over — meet the fluid-filled loops and chamber of the inner ear that tell your brain which way is up and when you are spinning
Beginner 8 min Part 3

How Does Your Ear Keep You Balanced?

Your ear does a second, hidden job: balance. Inside it sit fluid-filled loops that sense spinning and a chamber that senses tilt and gravity. Label the semicircular canals, vestibule, cochlea, ossicles, eardrum and nerve, and learn how one organ both hears and keeps you upright — in an interactive playground.