About Your Lungs

Lungs Animations and Interactives

Interactive: View the lungs from the outside and the inside

Interactive: View the entire vascular system

Animation: View a working respiratory system->

Lessons About Your Lungs

Lung Model | Ins and Outs of Respiration | Catch Your Breath | O₂ CO₂ Skit |

Amazing Lung Facts

• At rest, a person breathes about 14 to 16 times per minute. After exercise it could increase to over 60 times per minute.
• New babies at rest breathe between 40 and 50 times per minute. By age five it decreases to around 25 times per minute.
• The total surface area of the alveoli (tiny air sacs in the lungs) is the size of a tennis court.
  
• The lungs are the only organ in the body that can float on water.
• The lungs produce a detergent-like substance which reduces the surface tension of the fluid lining, allowing air in.

Habits of the Heart ©2000 Science Museum of Minnesota