My Body: Lungs and Breathing

Lungs and Breathing

When you breathe in, fresh air goes into your lungs.

Then the air goes from the lungs into your blood.

Stale air, called carbon dioxide, comes out of the lungs. You breathe it out.

(Art work created by Jo-Anne Ridgway for Me and My Body by Thomas & Stutchbury, Macmillan Blackline Masters, 1990)

You breathe in and out all the time - without having to even think about if most of the time!

When you breathe in (inhale) through your mouth or nose, air travels down your windpipe and into your lungs. The windpipe is called the trachea (say tray-kee-uh). At the end of the trachea there are two big tubes : just one is called bronchus (say brong-kuss) and the two together are called bronchi (say brong-keye). Each bronchus goes to a lung. The bronchi branch off into smaller tubes and then smaller ones.

The tiniest ones are called bronchioles, and they are covered with millions of tiny air sacs called alveoli (say al-vee-oh-lee) These air sacs fill with air and the lungs get bigger.

Each air sac is covered with tiny blood vessels called capillaries (say cuh-pill-ar-ees).

Blood which has travelled around the body and has had all the oxygen taken from it, comes into the lungs from the heart through the blood vessels. The blood is carrying carbon dioxide which the body doesn't want.

The blood leaves the carbon dioxide in the lungs and picks up fresh oxygen from the lungs. When you breathe out (exhale), the carbon dioxide leaves your body. The fresh oxygen is carried around the body in the blood.

The lungs are protected by the ribs. Under the ribs there is a muscle called the diaphragm (say die-uh-fram). It works with your lungs as you inhale and exhale.

Click here to read more about how lungs work and about the respiratory (breathing) system
http://www.innerbody.com/image/cardov.html
http://www.kidshealth.org/kid/htbw/lungs.html
http://yucky.discovery.com/flash/body/pg000138.html

Asthma is a condition when people find it difficult to breathe. Click here to find out about asthma: http://www.kidshealth.org/kid/health_problems/allergy/asthma.html

If you use any part of this in your own work, write the source in your bibliography like this:
Sydenham, S. & Thomas, R. Lungs [Online] www.kidcyber.com.au (2004)

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