Bre Patrick
Period: 7
Honors Anatomy
December 4, 2014

1. What is the purpose of skin? What functions does it serve? How does it serve these functions?

The purpose of skin is to protect the organs inside the body. The functions of skin is protection, excretion, maintence, synthesis, storage, and detection. Protection underlying tissues and organs against shocks, absorption and chemical attack. Excretion of salts, water and organic wastes by integumentary glands. Maintence of normal body temperature through either insulation or evaporative cooling, as needed. Synthesis of Vitamin D3, a steroid that is subsequently converted to the hormone calcitriol, important to normal calcium metabolism. Storage of nutrients. Lipids are stored in adipocytes in the dermis and in adipose tissue in the subcutaneous layer. Detection of touch, pressure, pain, and temperature stimuli and the relay of that information to the nervous system.

2. What are five layers of the skin? Describe each.

There are actually three layers to the skin; The Epidermis, The Dermis, and the Subcutaneous Fat Layer. However there are five skin layers that take place in the epidermis. * The Epidermis: provides mechanical protection and helps keep microorganisms outside the body. * Stratum Spinosum: the outermost epidermis layer that protects against foreign materials and to produce and retain moisture, which it does through a series of cellular-level interactions and interchanges. * Stratum Germinativum: the innermost epidermal layer that helps the skin regenerate. * Stratum Granulosum: creates a waterproof barrier between these outer layers and the inner, live cells. * Stratum Lucidum: designed to help the body handle friction, is transparent when viewed under a microscope. * Stratum Corneum: keeping molecules from passing into and out of the skin,