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Your Lungs: Simple or Simply Amazing? By Erin Horner Up and down. Up and down. This is what your chest does every minute of every day. It seems pretty simple, doesn't it? But hidden under your skin and beneath your rib cage is a very complex organ that causes the constant rise and fall of your chest: your lungs. Your lungs are one of the largest organs in your body. The outside of your lungs look pink and rubbery. The inside of your lungs look a lot like sponges. 1 Every time you inhale, your chest rises. A breath of air travels in through your nose or mouth. Then it makes its way down your trachea or windpipe. Finally it arrives in your lungs. The air then fills up millions of air sacs. Six hundred 2 million, to be exact! These sacs, or alveoli, let the oxygen from the air pass into your blood stream. The newly oxygenated blood travels all the way to your heart. Your heart then pumps that blood all over your body! As your blood is pumped through your body, blood cells make a trade. Oxygen is dropped off. Carbon dioxide, the waste product, is picked up. Carbon dioxide can't stay in your blood stream. Your body must get rid of it. So, it's back to the lungs for a quick trip out of the body. Once the blood cells have picked up the carbon dioxide, they head back to the lungs. After entering through the capillaries, the air sacs fill up with the waste. Finally, you exhale. As your chest falls, you breathe out the carbon dioxide. 3 This "simple" up and down routine happens all the time. It happens while you are awake. It happens while you are asleep. It happens even when you aren't thinking about it. Your lungs are always working! In reality, there is only one thing about breathing that is simple. It is quite simply amazing! 4 Copyright © 2013 edHelper 1. 2. What are the sacs in your lungs called? What is this passage mainly about? Why your body needs oxygen Your lungs and their complex job The best way to exhale The simple things your body can do 3. 4. Which of the following is What does the word inhale true? mean? Your lungs do not have To breath out a very important job. To breathe in Breathing is very To put something in a hole simple. Hail that falls through the You only breathe when roof and comes inside you think about it. Your lungs contain six hundred million air sacs.