The Respiratory System
By: Shivani Bangalore, Kaci Reyes and Anthony Villalobos
Facts!
~Respiration cannot take place without your circulatory and digestive system
~Your body eliminates the carbon dioxide and water waste through our lungs
~Besides releasing energy, the respiratory system produces carbon dioxide and water
~To perform activities, your cells need oxygen to survive
~In an average day, you breathe more than 20,000 times
~Breathing is controlled by your involuntary muscles
~An adult's lungs contain about 300 million alveoli (tiny sacs of lung tissue used for the movement of gases between the air and blood)
~Normally, only air, not food enters the trachea, the food can block the opening and prevent air getting into the lungs
~The larynx is your voice box in the top part of your trachea
~Small children have high pitch voices because larynx are small and their vocal cords are short
~When you breathe, your rib muscle will contract and lift the chest wall upward and outward. At the same time, the diaphragm contracts and moves downwards. With this combination, it will make the chest cavity larger, providing extra space for the lungs to expand.
~The cilia that line the nasal passages help remove trapped particles
~Air rushes into your chest the same way that air is sucked into a vacuum cleaner
~When someone inhales tobacco smoke, some tar settles on cilia that line the trachea and other respiratory organs.