Create a Lung Model

Your lungs are very important organs because they allow you to breathe! When you breathe in, oxygen comes into your body. When you breathe out, carbon dioxide goes out. This exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide is called respiration! It happens 12 to 20 times per minute. 

Your respiratory system is the group of organs that cause you to breathe. It is made up of 7 important body parts: nose, mouth, throat, voice box, windpipe, lungs, and diaphragm.

Your lungs are a pair of cone-shaped organs made up of spongy, pinkish-gray tissue. They have many tubes (which look like tree branches) called bronchi (say: BRAHN-kye) and bronchioles (say: BRAHN-kee-olz) which carry the air throughout your lungs. In addition to helping you breathe, your lungs do many things such as:

  • Support your sense of smell

  • Allow you to speak and create sound

  • Protect your body from bad substances, dust, and germs

It is very important that you keep your lungs healthy because they impact your body! You can keep your lungs healthy by:

  • Not smoking and vaping

  • Exercising

  • Eating healthy

  • Drinking lots of water

  • Avoiding air pollution

Did you know?

  • Lungs are the only organs that can float on water

  • You have two lungs but your left lung is a little smaller than your right lung because the left side needs extra room for your heart.

  • You take 20,000 breaths each day.

Design Challenge:

Become a Pulmonologist by creating a lung model to explore healthy and unhealthy lungs.

  • What body parts make up your respiratory system?

  • How do your lungs work?

  • What happens if air cannot get into your lungs?

  • What happens if your lung has a hole in it?

  • How can you keep your lungs healthy?

Materials included in kit:

  • 4 - Brown Paper Bags

  • Markers

  • Masking Tape

  • Scissors

  • 4 - Straws

  • Templates - Lungs, Nose & Mouth

Build Instructions:

Build instructions provided by Human Body Learning.

Part 1: Create a Healthy Lung Model

  1. Cut out a nose and mouth from the template.

  2. Put two straws together to make an upside-down “Y” shape. Tape the long part of the straws together. (See Figure 1)

  3. Tape the nose and mouth to the straws. (See Figure 2)

    • This is where air first enters the human body. Doctors call this area the “upper airway” or the “upper respiratory tract.”

  4. Draw bronchioles and alveoli with a marker on the brown paper bags “lungs.” (See Figure 3)

    • Your lungs have lots of little bronchioles and alveoli. Bronchioles are the smallest airways in the respiratory system. Alveoli are the small bags of air at the end of each bronchiole. Doctors call this area the “lower airways” or the “lower respiratory tract.”

  5. Tape a brown paper bag around each straw end. The paper bags are the lungs of your model. (See Figure 4)

    • Make sure there are no gaps for air to leak out!

  6. Experiment! Blow slowly into the straws. What do you see? Are you able to blow air into the paper bag lungs?

    • Notice how both lungs fill up with air. Because the straw “airways” are open, the lungs can breathe in fresh air.

  7. Now try squeezing the air out of the paper bag lungs. What do you notice? Did the paper bag lungs get smaller? Did you feel the air rush out of the open end of the straws?

Figure 1: Tape straws together in upside-down “Y” shape.

Figure 2: Tape the nose and mouth to the straws

Figure 3: Draw bronchioles and alveoli

Figure 4: Tape a brown paper bag around each straw end

Part 2: make a blocked windpipe (trachea)

  1. With your fingers, squeeze the straws under the mouth in the “trachea” part of the lung model.

  2. Now, try blowing air through the straws.

    • What do you notice? Are you able to blow air into the lungs?

    • How do you think someone would feel if their trachea was blocked?

Part 3: Create an unHealthy Lung Model

Figure 5: Cover the end of a straw with tape to block the airway

  1. Repeat steps 1 through 4 described above in the Part 1: Create a Healthy Lung Model section

  2. Then, cover the end of a straw with tape to block the hole. (See Figure 5)

  3. Tape a brown paper bag around each straw end. The paper bags are the lungs of your model. Make sure there are no gaps for air to leak out! (See Figure 4)

  4. Experiment! Blow slowly into the straws. What do you notice? Are you able to blow air into both lungs or only one lung?

    • When the straw “airways” are blocked, the lungs cannot breathe fresh air. In real life, when airways are blocked, a person would have trouble breathing.

Part 4: Create an Lung With Hole Model

  1. Cut a small hole in the brown paper bag of your lung model. See what happens when you try to blow air in and suck air out.

    • Sometimes, the lung can get a hole when the chest gets hit or poked with a lot of force. This can be very painful! When a person has a hole in a lung, doctors call this a “pneumothorax” because air from the lungs can leak out into the chest. “Pneumo” means “air,” and “thorax” means” chest.

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