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Chapter 1-Respiration (Year 8)

The human respiratory system consists of the mouth, nose, pharynx, larynx, trachea, bronchi, bronchioles and alveoli. Air enters through the mouth and nose and moves through the respiratory tract to the alveoli in the lungs. In the alveoli, oxygen diffuses into the blood and carbon dioxide diffuses out of the blood. The diaphragm and intercostal muscles contract and relax to inhale and exhale air, facilitating gas exchange.

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32 views3 pages

Chapter 1-Respiration (Year 8)

The human respiratory system consists of the mouth, nose, pharynx, larynx, trachea, bronchi, bronchioles and alveoli. Air enters through the mouth and nose and moves through the respiratory tract to the alveoli in the lungs. In the alveoli, oxygen diffuses into the blood and carbon dioxide diffuses out of the blood. The diaphragm and intercostal muscles contract and relax to inhale and exhale air, facilitating gas exchange.

Uploaded by

Yu Xuan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Respiration

1.1 Human Respiratory System

The Human Respiratory System

Structure of the human Functions


respiratory system

Mouth and nose Air gets into your body through mouth and nose.
Pharynx (throat) Hollow tube that starts behind the nose, goes
down the neck, and ends at the top of the trachea
and esophagus.
Larynx (voicebox) Produce sounds
Trachea (windpipe) A long tube covered by cartilage leading to the
bronchus.
Cartilage Strong rings of cartilage that keep the trachea
open and prevent it collapsing, so that air can be
kept moving in and out of your body.
Bronchi / bronchus The trachea branches into two bronchi which leads
to the right and left lungs.
Bronchioles Each bronchus divides into several smaller tubes
called bronchioles. The bronchioles end by
branching into many tiny structures called air sacs.
Air sacs / alveolus / The air sacs is where the oxygen goes into the
alveoli blood, and the carbon dioxide comes out.
Diaphragm The diaphragm, located below the lungs, is the
major muscle of respiration. It is a large, dome-
shaped muscle that contracts rhythmically and
continually.
Inhaling - diaphragm contract and goes
downwards
Exhaling – diaphragm relaxes and goes
upwards/back to its original shape (dome-shaped)
1.2 Gas exchange in the lungs

We need to get oxygen from the air into the blood, and we need to remove
waste carbon dioxide from the blood into the air. Moving gases like this is
called gas exchange.

Features of the alveoli

The alveoli are adapted to make gas exchange in lungs happen easily and
efficiently. Here are some features of the alveoli that allow this:

 they give the lungs a really big surface area


 they have moist, thin walls (just one cell thick)
 they have a lot of tiny blood vessels called capillaries

How gas exchange happened?


The gases move by diffusion from where they have a high concentration to
where they have a low concentration:

 oxygen diffuses from the air in the alveoli into the blood
 carbon dioxide diffuses from the blood into the air in the alveoli

Characteristics of alveoli

Some water vapour is also lost from the surface of the alveoli into the lungs - we
can see this condensing when we breathe out on cold days.
1.3 Breathing

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