Test Your Lung Capacity
Learn more
about your lungs with this cool experiment.
St. Louis – We
need the air around us to make our bodies work, move, and do all
the fun things that we like to do! How do we use it? We breathe
it! How large do you think your lungs
are? The size of a sandwich bag? The size of a drink box?
This experiment will help you see how just how big your lungs
really are!
Materials:
-
Empty 2-liter plastic soda bottle
-
5
galloon bucket
-
Plastic tubing
-
Water
-
Permanent marker
-
A
parent, friend, brother or sister
Procedure:
Step 1: Fill the
bucket with water.
Step 2: Take the
2-liter bottle and push it down into the bucket to fill it up to
the top with water.
Step 3: Hold your
hand over the top of the 2-liter bottle you just filled with
water. Turn it upside down, so the opening is facing the floor,
and place it back in the bucket of water.
Step 4: Ask an
adult or friend to hold the 2-liter bottle upside down in the
bucket. Make sure no water comes out! If it does, go back to step
2.
Step 5: Place one
end of the plastic tubing down into the bucket of water and up
into the mouth of the 2-liter bottle.
Step 6: Take a
deep breath and blow into the other end of the plastic tubing.
Keep blowing until you cannot breathe any more!
Step 7: When you
are done, carefully lift the 2-liter bottle out of the water
(careful not to tilt it to the side!) and use the permanent marker
to mark the point where the air and water meet inside.
Step 8: If you
wish, return to step 2, and have your friend, parent, or brother
or sister try the experiment next!
Step 9: Take few
minutes to explain the science behind the experiment to your
parents!
Explanation:
Every day, humans continuously breathe in and out, carrying air to
and from our lungs. The amount of air we take into the lungs in an
average breath is called our lungs’ Tidal Volume. However,
our lungs can hold 8 to 12 times as much as we breathe in during a
normal breath! In this experiment, you measured the maximum amount
of air that you can breathe out after taking your deepest possible
breath. This amount is known as your lungs’ Vital Capacity.
The mark you drew on your soda bottle shows the limit of your
lungs’ Vital Capacity.
Our
vital capacity depends on a lot of things, like our age, weight,
sex, and physical fitness. For example, females tend to have a
lower capacity than males. Tall people tend to have a larger
capacity than shorter people. Heavy smokers have a much lower
capacity than nonsmokers, and top athletes have a much bigger
capacity than most.
Exercising helps
increase our lungs’ vital capacity, bad habits like smoking or
inactivity helps reduce it!
Mad Science aims
to spark the imagination and curiosity of children by providing
them with fun, entertaining and educational activities that
instill a clear understanding of what science is really about and
how it affects the world around them . For more information about
our Birthday Parties, After-School programs, In-Class workshops,
Pre-school programs, Summer Camps, Corporate events and more call
(727) 895-5595 or (813) 655-6643 or visit our website at
www.MadScience.org/wsTampaBay
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