Download Your Heart, Lungs and Blood

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Your Heart,
Lungs and Blood
This resource has been prepared for teachers
who are teaching young students about
their hearts, lungs and blood.
1
Puffing
and Panting
When you’re running a race, your brain
tells your muscles to move your bones fast!
You won’t get very far, though, unless
you can breathe.
To create energy, your muscles and other
body parts need a gas called oxygen.
You take in oxygen when you breathe in
air through your nose and mouth.
The faster you run, the more oxygen your
body needs to create energy.
So your brain tells you to breathe
faster and faster until you are
puffing and panting!
Air
Inside
a lung
Your blood carries the
oxygen to every part
of your body where it
is needed.
Windpipe
Air rushes from your
nose and mouth down
your windpipe into
your lungs.
How does oxygen get into your body?
In your lungs, oxygen
is absorbed,
or soaked up, into
your blood.
Lung
As blood flows through your body, it also
collects a gas called carbon dioxide. This
gas is poisonous to your body. Your blood
carries this gas to your lungs. You then use
your lungs to breathe the gas out.
2
Your Beating
Heart
At the end of a race, you will probably
feel your heart beating fast. Why?
It’s your heart’s job to pump, or push,
your blood around your body.
Then your blood can carry oxygen from
your lungs to your muscles and other body parts.
Your heart usually beats, and pumps,
about 80 times each minute.
When you do exercise, it must beat faster
to deliver more oxygen to make more energy.
That’s why when you move around fast,
your heart beats fast, too.
Your blood has many
important jobs to do. For
example, it delivers nutrients
from your food to where they
are needed in your body.
Together, nutrients and
oxygen give you energy.
Vein
Heart
Artery
Your blood travels
around your body
through thousands of
kilometres of tubes
called veins and arteries.
3
The main
ingredient in
your blood is
a watery liquid
called plasma.
White
blood cells
Red blood
cells
Your blood also
contains red
blood cells and
white blood cells.
What Is Blood Made Of?
Inside a
blood vessel
Your white blood
cells attack germs
and help you fight
illnesses.
d
blo
od cell
Oxygen
Re
Red blood cells
deliver oxygen to
cells that need it.
4