Anatomy/Physiology Slideshow: The Respiratory System

Azabelle Peters Grade 9 Anatomy/Physiology Chapter 20: Project 2

An Intro to the respiratory System The average adult takes 15 to 20 breaths a minute. Your respiratory system, which includes the nose, throat, trachea and lungs, brings air into the body when you breathe. In the lungs, the oxygen from each breath is transferred to the bloodstream and sent to all the body's cells as life-sustaining fuel. Keeping your lungs healthy is an important part of an overall healthy lifestyle

In order to better understand the respiratory system,
we must first examine the parts that create it.
The Nose
Step 1: The air enters your respiratory system through your nostrils.
Step 2: The air goes through your nose ’s nasal passages. Your nasal passages are equipped with hairs, mucus, cilia, and blood capillaries that moisten, filter, and warm the air before it enters your lungs.
Step 3: The air goes to your heart to help your blood flow.
Believe it or not, but your nose does a lot for you and your respiratory system!
The Nose

Step 4: Air travels from the nasal passages to the pharynx, or more commonly known as the throat.
Step 5: When the air leaves the pharynx it passes into the larynx, or the voice box. The voice box is constructed mainly of cartilage, which is a flexible connective tissue. The vocal chords are two pairs of membranes that are stretched across the inside of the larynx. As the air is expired, the vocal chords vibrate. Humans can control the vibrations of the vocal chords, which enables us to make sounds.
Food and liquids are blocked from entering the opening of the larynx by the epiglottis to prevent people from choking during swallowing.
Pharynx and Larynx

Step 6: The larynx goes directly into the trachea or the windpipe. The trachea is a tube approximately 12 centimeters in length and 2.5 centimeters wide. The trachea is kept open by rings of cartilage within its walls.
Similar to the nasal passages, the trachea is covered with cilia. Usually the cilia move mucus and trapped foreign matter to the pharynx. After that, they leave the air passages and are normally swallowed
Trachea

Step 7: Around the center of the chest, the trachea divides into two cartilage-ringed tubes called bronchi. Also, this section of the respiratory system is lined with ciliated cells (cilia). The bronchi enter the lungs and spread into a treelike fashion into smaller tubes called bronchial tubes.
Bronchi

Step 8: The bronchial tubes divide and then subdivide. By doing this their walls become thinner and have less and less cartilage. Eventually, they become a tiny group of tubes called bronchioles.
Bronchioles

Step 9: Each bronchiole ends in a tiny air chamber that looks like a bunch of grapes. Each chamber contains many cup-shaped cavities known as alveoli. The walls of the alveoli, which are only about one cell thick, are the respiratory surface.
They are thin, moist, and are surrounded by several numbers of capillaries. The exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide between blood and air occurs through these walls.
The estimation is that lungs contain about 300 million alveoli.
Their total surface area would be about 70 square meters. That is 40 times the surface area of the skin.
Alveoli

Step 1: Oxygen enters the respiratory system through the mouth and the nose.
Step 2: The oxygen then passes through the larynx and the trachea which is a tube that enters the chest cavity.
Step 3:In the chest cavity, the trachea splits into two smaller tubes called the bronchi.
Step 4: Each bronchus then divides again forming the bronchial tubes. The bronchial tubes lead directly into the lungs where they divide into many smaller tubes which connect to tiny sacs called alveoli.
Step 5: The inhaled oxygen passes into the alveoli and then diffuses through the capillaries into the arterial blood.
Step 6: Meanwhile, the waste-rich blood from the veins releases its carbon dioxide into the alveoli. The carbon dioxide follows the same path out of the lungs when you exhale.
Summary

Oxygen, a basic gas, is needed by every cell in your body in order to live. The air that comes into the body through the lungs contains oxygen and other gases. In the lungs, the oxygen is moved into the bloodstream and carried through the body. At each cell in the body, the oxygen cells are exchanged for waste gas called carbon dioxide. The bloodstream then carries this waste gas back to the lungs where the waste gas is removed from the blood stream and then exhaled from the body. This vital process, called gas exchange, is performed automatically by the lungs and respiratory system.
Conclusion

Anatomy/Physiology Slideshow: The Respiratory System

by LHSprincipal on Oct 17, 2011

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Anatomy/Physiology Slideshow: The Respiratory System — Presentation Transcript