Educator

Hormones

• Hormones are chemical messengers that send information to all the cells in our body. Hormones transmit their chemical signals by diffusion over longer distances, and to potentially more cells, than the chemical signals of neurons.

• Hormones coordinate the body's internal activities, from maintaining homeostasis to timing the events of complex processes like reproduction and development.

• Important cues from the environment, such as day length and temperature, can be translated into hormonal signals that help organisms respond appropriately to environmental changes.

• In this Lesson, we’ll investigate the advantages of broadcasting chemical signals throughout the body, as we explore the characteristics and mechanisms of hormone action. We'll finish by doing an experiment to investigate the role of hormones in insects.