Build a model lung
You’ll need
- Balloons
- Clean, empty plastic bottles (two litres)
- Elastic bands
- Paper drinking straws
- Scissors
- Sticky tape
- Modelling clay
To watch in full screen, double click the video
Before you begin
- Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. There's also more guidance to help you carry out your risk assessment, including examples.
- Make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
- Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help.
Make a model lung
- Gather everyone together as group and ask if anyone knows about what lungs are.
- Explain that the lungs are two spongy organs in your chest that help you breathe. When you inhale, air travels down your windpipe (trachea) into the lungs, where tiny air sacs called alveoli allow oxygen to pass into your blood. This oxygen is very important for your body to have the energy it needs to play and be active. When you exhale, your lungs help remove carbon dioxide, a waste gas your body doesn't need.
- Tell everyone you’re going to make some model lungs. In pairs or groups, everyone should collect the equipment.
- Use the scissors to carefully cut the bottle in half width-ways, and throw away the bottom.
- Tie a knot in the neck of the first balloon. Cut it at its widest point, and keep the half with the tied neck. You can throw away the top of the balloon.
- Put the straw into the neck of the second balloon. Use an elastic band to secure it, but be careful not to crush the straw – air needs to flow through it freely. You can check that the straw isn’t squashed by blowing through it – the second balloon should inflate.
- Put the bottle over the top of the second balloon and straw. The balloon should be inside the bottle, and the straw should poke out of the bottle’s neck.
- Use modelling clay to create a seal around the top of the bottle. It should hold the straw in place without squashing it – air still needs to get through.
- Take the first balloon (which you’ve already tied and cut), and stretch it over the open bottom of the bottle.
- Use sticky tape to secure the first balloon, and make an airtight seal.
- Hold the bottle with one hand, and pull the knot at the bottom of the balloon.
- The balloon inside the bottle should inflate. It should deflate when you let go of the balloon covering the bottom of the bottle. The balloon inside the bottle is like a lung. The knotted balloon is like a diaphragm, which is a sheet of muscle which moves to make us breathe.
Why we have lungs
It might be helpful to think about your body working a bit like a car. All of your organs (including your lungs, stomach, and heart) work together like parts of a car, to keep you moving.
The lungs are one of the most important organs. They take oxygen out of the air we breathe, and put it into our blood. The heart pumps this blood around the body, so things in the blood (like oxygen) can reach all of our body parts. The lungs also put carbon dioxide back into our breath, so we can get rid of it by breathing it out.
How lungs work
Underneath our lungs, we have a sheet of muscle called the diaphragm.
When your diaphragm contracts (squeezes), it moves down and other muscles push your ribs out. This makes your chest bigger, and the change in pressure sucks air into your lungs. Your model shows you how this works.
When the diaphragm relaxes and goes back to its original shape, other muscles also relax. The chest gets smaller again, so air is pushed out of the lungs. Your model shows how this works too.
Hiccups happen when your diaphragm squeezes and relaxes lots of times – without your body asking it to!
Taking care of your lungs
There are lots of ways to keep your body healthy, but to look after your lungs you could:
- Improve the quality of air that you breathe, for example, by spending time outdoors (away from busy roads) or around plants.
- Keep active – exercise is great for your lungs.
- Eat foods with lots of vitamin A, C, and E. Vitamin A is found in dairy products (and alternatives), carrots, spinach, and yellow fruit (like mango and apricots). Vitamin C is found in oranges, strawberries, broccoli, and potatoes. Vitamin E is found in nuts and seeds, and plant oils (like soya, corn, and olive oil).
- Drink plenty of water.
- Try to avoid being around anyone who’s smoking.
Reflection
This activity helped you learn how to live healthily. What do your lungs do? What does your model show? Why is it important to look after your lungs? What sorts of things can you do to take care of your lungs? Do you think you take good care of your lungs already? What could you change to take even better care of your lungs?
Safety
All activities must be safely managed. You must complete a thorough risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Always get approval for the activity, and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.
- Scissors
Supervise young people appropriately when they’re using scissors. Store all sharp objects securely, out of the reach of young people.
- Sharp objects
Teach young people how to use sharp objects safely. Supervise them appropriately throughout. Store all sharp objects securely, out of the reach of young people.
- Rubbish and recycling
All items should be clean and suitable for this activity.
- Experiment with different size straws, or put something sticky in the second balloon, to see how different things (like asthma, or tar in cigarettes) change how well the lungs work.
- Try and create other organs too – what about using gravel filters to see how kidneys work, or a sponge and balloon pump to learn about the heart?
Explain the science behind the model at an appropriate level for the group – you could just say that tummies squeeze to make lungs fill with air. People should be able to feel their tummies moving when they breathe.
All Scout activities should be inclusive and accessible.
