The Mix-Fix Club

A 3D tour of the liver that follows the sugar from an apple as it's stored and let out again, for children about five to eight. Free, with no ads and no sign-ups.

What your child will learn

• The liver is the biggest organ inside you. It sits on the right, under your ribs, and does more than 500 jobs.
• Blood full of the good stuff from your food comes straight from the tummy up the portal vein. The hepatic artery brings fresh blood with oxygen.
• The liver is made of thousands of tiny lobules, shaped like honeycomb, with rows of liver cells.
• Mix: liver cells pack spare sugar into glycogen, a store of energy, and let it out when you need it. They make bile, which waits in the gallbladder and helps break down fat.
• Fix: they take toxins, things your body doesn't need, out of the blood, so they can leave in wee or poo.
• Bile is why poo is brown, and the liver can even grow back.

How it works

Story. A Tasmanian devil tells it in eight short chapters. It picks up where the Munch-Crunch Club ends: the camera follows the sugar from the apple (it wears an orange ring) up the portal vein and into the liver. A close-up of one lobule shows it packed away as glycogen, toxins being cleaned out, and bile being made. Then it's let back out, and off it goes to the heart. Every word is spoken and shown.

Explore. Turn the body round, peek inside the liver to see its blood vessels, or tap any part to hear what it does. Two buttons show the liver's real job: Eat sends sugar in to be stored (and the gallbladder squeezes out bile), and Play lets it back out for energy. Follow the sugar goes all the way round, and What's this? shows the parts one at a time, including the lobule close-up.

Quiz. Six picture questions, read aloud, so it works before your child can read. A wrong answer greys out and they have another go; nothing is ever lost. Finishing brings a new animal for their My mob book, and a card of the words they now know.

The real words it teaches

The tour uses the real names for the parts, and says what each one means the first time. These are on the card at the end, and a tap on each says what it means.

• Liver: your biggest organ inside. It stores energy, makes bile and cleans your blood.
• Portal vein: it brings blood from your tummy to your liver.
• Hepatic artery: it brings fresh blood with oxygen to your liver.
• Lobule: one tiny part of your liver, shaped like honeycomb.
• Glycogen: sugar packed away as a store of energy.
• Toxins: things in your blood your body doesn't need.
• Bile: a yellow-green juice that helps break down fat.
• Gallbladder: a little bag under your liver that keeps the bile.

What it practises

• My body. How the body works, and the real names of its parts: the heart's atria and ventricles, arteries and veins (the Lub-Dub Club).
  AC9S1U01 (Science, Year 1); AC9HPFM03 (Health and Physical Education, Foundation)

The codes are from the Australian Curriculum v9 (Foundation to Year 1). Each links to the official wording. Food is one of the basic needs children learn about in Year 1; the tour shows how the body stores the energy from it.

Things to try together

• Find where your liver is: put a hand on your right side, just under your ribs.
• Run on the spot for a minute. Where did the energy come from? Some of it was sugar your liver let out.
• Draw a honeycomb, and count the sides of each shape. Your liver's lobules have six.
• The sheet to print has the liver and its neighbours to label, a honeycomb of lobules to colour (with the sugar hidden in it), and "mix or fix?" to match.

The tour says nothing about foods being good or bad, and nothing about illness. Its one piece of advice is that medicine is only for when a grown-up gives it. The liver clears medicines from the blood, and that's the safe habit a five-year-old can keep.

What's simplified, and why

• The liver is drawn simply: two lobes without the smaller ones underneath, and far fewer vessel branches than a real liver.
• We follow one bit of sugar. Really, sugar from every meal arrives all the time, and much of it goes straight on round the body.
• The lobule is shown hugely enlarged, with a few rows of liver cells.
• Muscles store glycogen too; the tour keeps to the liver.
• Old red blood cells are mostly broken down in the spleen; the tour says only that the liver puts their colour into bile.
• The spleen and heart are simple shapes; the Lub-Dub Club has the real heart.

Where the facts come from

Every fact the tour states was checked against the page linked beside it.

• The liver is the largest internal organ; it is on the upper right side of the abdomen, just below the diaphragm, and weighs around 1.5 kg in an adult.
  In the tour: This is your liver, the biggest organ inside you.
  Better Health Channel — Liver
• The liver is under the ribcage on the right side of the body.
  In the tour: It sits on your right side, under your ribs.
  healthdirect — Liver
• The liver performs more than 500 important functions.
  In the tour: It does more than five hundred jobs!
  Cleveland Clinic — Liver
• The portal vein carries blood to the liver from the digestive organs; the hepatic artery carries blood to the liver from the heart.
  In the tour: It comes up the portal vein, straight from your tummy. The hepatic artery brings fresh blood with oxygen from your heart.
  healthdirect — Liver
• 75% to 80% of the liver's blood comes from the portal vein.
  In the tour: (the guide) Most of the liver's blood comes up the portal vein.
  StatPearls — Anatomy, Abdomen and Pelvis: Liver (NCBI)
• Liver lobules are hexagonal collections of liver cells with a central vein in the middle; blood flows across the lobule to the central vein.
  In the tour: Your liver is made of thousands of tiny lobules, shaped like honeycomb. Blood trickles past rows of liver cells, to the middle.
  StatPearls — Anatomy, Abdomen and Pelvis: Liver (NCBI)
• Both lobes contain thousands of smaller lobes (lobules).
  In the tour: Thousands of tiny lobules.
  Cleveland Clinic — Liver
• The liver stores energy as a sugar called glycogen, and releases glucose into the blood to keep blood sugar steady.
  In the tour: The liver packs spare sugar into glycogen, a store of energy for later. So the liver lets the sugar back out, into your blood.
  KidsHealth (kids) — Your liver; Cleveland Clinic — Liver
• The liver takes toxins out of the blood.
  In the tour: It takes out toxins, things your body doesn't need.
  KidsHealth (kids) — Your liver
• Waste can be carried by bile into the intestine and out in poo; the liver changes ammonia into urea, which leaves in urine.
  In the tour: It changes them, so they can leave your body, in wee or in poo.
  KidsHealth (kids) — Your liver; Better Health Channel — Liver
• Bile is made by the liver, stored in the gallbladder and helps break down fats.
  In the tour: Liver cells make bile, a yellow-green juice. It waits in the gallbladder, then squirts into the small intestine to break down fat.
  Better Health Channel — Liver; healthdirect — Liver
• Bilirubin from worn-out red blood cells goes to the liver and into bile; it becomes stercobilin, which makes poo brown.
  In the tour: Bile is why your poo is brown!
  The Conversation — Why is my poop brown?
• Venous blood leaves the liver by the hepatic veins into the inferior vena cava, which goes to the heart.
  In the tour: Up the hepatic veins and off to your heart it goes.
  StatPearls — Anatomy, Abdomen and Pelvis: Liver (NCBI)
• Liver tissue can repair itself and regrow (regenerate) after being damaged.
  In the tour: Your liver can even grow back if it gets hurt.
  healthdirect — Liver
• The liver clears medicines (like paracetamol) from the blood.
  In the tour: Medicine is only for when a grown-up gives it to you.
  healthdirect — Liver

Every word it says

The whole script, for reading along, or for a child who'd rather read than listen.

1. Mix and fix

• Hello! I'm a Tasmanian devil. Grrr! Don't worry, I'm friendly.
• This is your liver, the biggest organ inside you.
• It sits on your right side, under your ribs.
• It does more than five hundred jobs! Let's see three big ones.

2. The way in

• Remember the sugar from our apple? Dugong does!
• It comes up the portal vein, straight from your tummy.
• The hepatic artery brings fresh blood with oxygen from your heart.
• See the ring? That's our sugar, going into the liver.

3. Tiny honeycombs

• Let's look really closely! Your liver is made of thousands of tiny lobules, shaped like honeycomb.
• Blood trickles past rows of liver cells, to the middle.

4. Pack it away

• Here's a liver cell. In goes our sugar!
• The liver packs spare sugar into glycogen, a store of energy for later.
• That's the mix!

5. Clean it up

• Your liver cleans your blood, too.
• It takes out toxins, things your body doesn't need.
• It changes them, so they can leave your body, in wee or in poo.
• That's the fix!

6. Yellow-green bile

• Liver cells make bile, a yellow-green juice.
• It waits in the gallbladder, then squirts into the small intestine to break down fat.
• And guess what? Bile is why your poo is brown!

7. Time to play!

• When you run and play, your body needs energy.
• So the liver lets the sugar back out, into your blood.
• Up the hepatic veins and off to your heart it goes. Bye!
• Your liver can even grow back if it gets hurt. Clever!

8. Look after your liver

• Your liver works all day and all night, mixing and fixing.
• Medicine is only for when a grown-up gives it to you.
• Thanks for mixing and fixing with me. Welcome to the Mix-Fix Club!

The quiz

Quiz time! Let's see what you remember. The right answers are in bold.

1. Where is your liver? (In your head / Under your ribs, on the right / In your foot)
2. What does your liver make? (Bile / Tears / Hair)
3. Which blood vessel brings blood from your tummy to your liver? (Your windpipe / Your food pipe / The portal vein)
4. What does your liver pack spare sugar into? (Glycogen / Bubbles / Bones)
5. What does your liver take out of your blood? (Music / Toxins / Sunshine)
6. What can your liver do that most parts can't? (Fly / Sing / Grow back)

For every child

• Every word is spoken and written, so it works with the sound on or off.
• It works with a keyboard: the arrow keys turn the body in Explore, and What's this? steps through the parts.
• If your device asks for less motion, the camera cuts instead of flying, the blood stops shimmering and the confetti stays still.

What it needs, and what we collect

A recent browser on a phone, tablet or computer. The first visit downloads about 10 MB, and after that it keeps working with no signal. Nothing about your child is collected: the My mob card and the sound setting are kept on your own device. The privacy page has the whole story.

More in the series: What Makes Me, with the Lub-Dub Club, the Huff-Puff Club and the Munch-Crunch Club.