Inflatable Lungs | Bengali
Channel: Arvind Gupta
Date: 2016-02-21

Lungs are like 2 or 3 liter bags in side our bodies. We can make a working model of the lungs an old plastic bottle and some balloons. You will also have to improvise you make a Y-shaped, 3-way tubular joint. While breathing in and out you can see them inflating and deflating. The bottle is your chest, the Vertical of Y joint is the wind pipe, and two wings of Y are the small wind pipes or bronchi. Stretch a cut balloon on the mouth of the cut bottle. This will be the diaphragm.
Notice the lungs inflate and deflate only when the balloon is pulled down. This balloon represents the diaphragm in our body. When the diaphragm contracts it pushes up and deflates the lungs. When the muscles are relaxed diaphragm comes down and lungs get filled with oxygen.
So the inflation and deflation of the lungs is controlled by the diaphragm.
To get energy our cells need to burn food. To burn food we need Oxygen. Lungs supply blood with oxygen and take away CO2 from the blood. This happens inside lungs where blood inside capillaries and air inside alveoli (very thin air pipes) come very close. 
It is amazing that our lungs have 2400 km long alveoli and about 900 km of blood capillaries where the gas exchange takes place. The total surface area for the gas exchange is about 100 square meters. Imagine all this inside a 3 liter bag.
Here are three questions to ponder about:
. Why is our left lung smaller?
. Diaphragm muscles work when we inhale or exhale?
. How is the gas exchange in our lungs affected when we breathe in air full of Carbon Dioxide?

This work is supported by IUCAA (www.iucaa.in) and TATA Trust (www.tata.com/aboutus/sub_index/Tata-trusts)

Credits:,Ashok Rupner, Shivaji Mane, Jyoti Hiremath, Arvind Gupta, Vidula Mhaiskar

Dubbed in Bengali by Krishnanjan Mondal from Pratham's Science Learning Program TATA Trust: Education is one of the key focus areas for Tata Trusts, aiming towards enabling access of quality education to the underprivileged population in India. To facilitate quality in teaching and learning of Science education through workshops, capacity building and resource creation, Tata Trusts have been supporting Muktangan Vigyan Shodhika (MVS), IUCAA's Children’s Science Centre, since inception. To know more about other initiatives of Tata Trusts, please visit www.tatatrusts.org