School Project on Asthma?
The Science of Breathing and Asthma
Explain breathing and the functions of the lungs, including how oxygen is transferred to the blood and carbon dioxide removed. Also explain what happens to the lungs when a person has asthma, and how this affects their ability to breathe.
Air is mainly made up of 21% oxygen and 78% nitrogen. We breath air into our lungs through our nose or mouth and down through airways that get increasingly smaller, like the branches of a tree as they move farther from the trunk. Finally the air ends up in the alveoli. The alveoli take oxygen from the air and pass it through a membrane to the capillaries (tiny blood vessels) that surround the alveoli.
The capillaries then move the oxygen-rich blood through the blood vessels to the various organs where it is needed to function. These organs also give off carbon dioxide as a waste product that needs to be removed. The blood, which at this point has little oxygen left but lots of waste carbon dioxide, is moved to the alveoli. The capillaries that surround the alveoli transfer the carbon dioxide through the membrane and into the alveoli. We then exhale the carbon dioxide and take in more oxygen. The cycle repeats over and over, every few seconds.
Find out more about the science of breathing here. And check out books from your library that describe respiration and the function of the lungs.
