Human Health and Fitness – Exercise and Breathing Lessons 1 and 2

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Prior knowledge

Regular exercise and a balanced diet are needed to keep the body healthy. Too little food leads to a person

being underweight and prone to illness, while too much food and not enough exercise leads to a person being

overweight and prone to other illnesses. Excess cholesterol increases the risk of heart disease, and excess salt

causes high blood pressure and increases the risk of heart disease and stroke.

Exercise:

The NHS recommends that to maintain a basic level of health, children and young people aged 5 to 18 need to

do:

At least 60 minutes of physical activity every day, which should range between moderate activity,

such as cycling and playground activities, and vigorous activity, such as running and tennis.

On three days a week, these activities should involve exercises for strong muscles, such as push-

ups, and exercises for strong bones, such as jumping and running.

Many vigorous activities can help children build strong muscles and bones, such as anything involving running

and jumping, like gymnastics, martial arts and football.

Children and young people should reduce the time they spend sitting watching TV, playing computer games

and travelling by car when they could walk or cycle instead.

Balanced Diet:

Having a healthy diet doesn’t just depend on the amount of food you eat. Our bodies require a mix of different

types of foods to stay healthy, and we also need to exercise to keep our bodies in good condition.

A mix of all of the food groups is essential for maintaining a healthy diet. The three main food groups and their

uses are outlined in the table:

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These food groups all provide the body with energy. They are used by the body to provide fuel for respiration.

As well as protein, carbohydrate and fat, the body also requires:

Water – the human body is made up of about 60% water. If we don’t drink enough fluids, our bodies

become dehydrated. The recommended amount is about 8 glasses for women and 10 for men, but an

individual’s needs will vary depending on activity level, and temperature.

Vitamins – Our bodies need a variety of vitamins to keep working properly. Vitamin C, found in oranges, is

essential to prevent scurvy, and also important in the immune system. Vitamin B, found in vegetables and

fruit, has many functions.

Minerals – iron and calcium are essential minerals, found in a variety of foods, needed for turning the

food you eat into energy, and building healthy teeth and bones

Fibre – found in food that comes from plants. Many benefits to our bodies, including aiding digestion.

A balanced diet can be very different for different people. That’s why if you’re trying to eat healthily, there is

no secret formula that will work for everybody. The exact requirements of your body depends on your age,

gender, how active you are, and whether you have any special dietary requirements (e.g. you choose not to

eat certain food types, or have a food allergy).

Lessons are designed to be flexible, and can be organised to suit your class and timetable. Our suggested plan

is to spend one lesson delivering the theory and demonstration. The website has a lesson plan, support

documents and pupil sheets. There you will also find videos and support documents for further instructions on

demonstrations and investigations. Time can then also be spent on the skills focus, i.e. planning, collecting

data or interpreting data. Children can build upon their knowledge of predicting, devising questions that could

be tested and data collection. This term they will develop the skills necessary to evaluate the data they collect.

The following week time can be taken to revisit the scientific knowledge and children have the opportunity to

plan and carry out their own investigation. There is then time to work in pairs to carry out the experiment and

evaluate their findings and observations at the end of the lesson.

Each lesson plan has homework suggestions and links to further studies.

Differentiation is not stated by year groups as classes vary from year to year, cohort to cohort and school to

school. We state our aims for most children and then for some. This means that every demonstration and

investigation has been chosen because any KS2 child can access it at some level. Evaluation sheets are

available for Lower and Upper KS2.

The level of understanding, language used, ability to relate concepts and investigate are the skills which

develop as the child learns. Please refer to the Welcome Pack for further details.

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Lessons 1 and 2 Exercise and Breathing

Essential Knowledge for Teachers

1. Breathing has two purposes; to move oxygen into the body and to remove waste carbon dioxide from the body. Oxygen is required by the body to ‘burn’ sugar absorbed from digestion to produce energy. This process is known as respiration. The equation for respiration is as follows:

glucose + oxygen → carbon dioxide + water (+ energy)

C6H12O6 + 6O2 → 6CO2 + 6H2O (+ energy)

Bonus points for anyone remembering the chemical equation!

2. Our lungs are in our chest, and they are so large that they take up most of the space in there. We have two lungs, but they aren't the same size the way your eyes or nostrils are. Instead, the lung on the left side of our body is a bit smaller than the lung on the right. This extra space on the left leaves room for our heart.

3. The lung is the essential respiration organ in all air-breathing animals, including most tetrapods, a few fish and a few snails. In mammals and the more complex life forms, the two lungs are located in the chest on either side of the heart. Their principal function is to transport oxygen from the atmosphere into the bloodstream, and to release carbon dioxide from the bloodstream into the atmosphere. This exchange of gases is accomplished in the mosaic of specialized cells that form millions of tiny, exceptionally thin-walled air sacs called alveoli.

4. When we ‘exhale’ the diaphragm moves down and the ribs down and out. During inhalation the reverse takes place. 5. Smoke contains thousands of chemicals, many of which are either carcinogenic or poisonous such as tar, formaldehyde,

cadmium, arsenic etc. 70% of the tar in cigarettes is trapped in the lungs. 6. If the inner surface of the lungs could be stretched out flat, they would occupy an area of around 80 to 100 square

meters – about the size of half of a tennis court! Children love facts like this.

Common Misconceptions

Air is mostly oxygen.

The air that we exhale has no oxygen in it.

Plants photosynthesize and animals respire.

Myth 1: Deep breathing is good for you. The truth then is that the more you breathe, the lower the oxygen level in your brain and body tissues. This is why you can get dizzy/hypoxic blowing up balloons and practising deep breathing in a fitness class.

Myth 2: The more oxygen we take in, the better. We normally breathe in far more oxygen than we need or can use. With normal breathing, a healthy person’s blood is already 97-99% saturated with oxygen. People with healthy lungs can in fact lower their breathing rate quite a lot, or breathe air that is lower in oxygen (like at altitude) for quite a while before they notice any difference.

Myth 3: Carbon dioxide is a poisonous waste gas. There is another common instruction: “Take deep breaths and blow off your ‘stale’ carbon dioxide”. We may be exhorted to fully and forcefully exhale, to expel more of this ‘poison’. Carbon dioxide is in fact a clear, tasteless, odourless gas that is absolutely necessary to sustain life. It is a vital part of all organic life on this planet. Like oxygen, we need the right amount – too much or too little is a problem. If carbon dioxide drops too low it is fatal.

Air travels to the body in air vessels like blood.

The only gas we breathe out is carbon dioxide.

We breathe in only oxygen and breathe out only carbon dioxide.

Inhaled air remains in the head.

Air is inhaled into the lungs, then exhaled, without links with the heart and circulatory system.

Inability to link the need for oxygen with the use of food.

Respiration is the same as breathing; the respiratory system is for carrying out respiration.

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Termly Scientific Skills Development Focus: Evaluation Questions that should be asked: (For more suggestions see page 20 of the Scheme of Work)

Are there any results/observations which don’t seem to match others? How would you explain any results/observations that you were not expecting? How would you use science to explain any results/ observations which don’t seem to match others? What could you do to make your method better?

Opportunities should be given throughout the lesson for children to use and develop their knowledge of planning investigations and collecting data. They should be encouraged to question the validity of their results.

Cross curricular links

Literacy Create a persuasive piece on the dangers of smoking. Write a facts/myths piece on smoking. Research and produce “Fun Facts” on your lungs. This link may get the children

started: http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/sciencefacts/humanbody/lungs.html Poetry: personification eg. Last Night I saw the City Breathing by Andrew Fusek

Peters http://childrenspoetryarchive.org/poem/last-night-i-saw-city-breathing

Numeracy Using data collected to find averages. Collected data can be used in a variety of graphs and tables. Write questions that can be answered from the data collected.

Other subjects Research and make alternative model lungs. Practise deep breathing and relaxation techniques with children.

Starter Activity You can't see your lungs, but it's easy to feel them in action: Put your hands on your chest and breathe in very deeply. You will

feel your chest getting slightly bigger. Now breathe out the air, and feel your chest return to its regular size. You've just felt the power of your lungs! Next, get children to feel under their ribcage and take slow, deep breaths. They may feel something moving, this would be their diaphragm. Show pupils a diagram of the lungs and use some of the vocabulary, they do not need to learn these but may become familiar with them. Discuss with children the role of the lungs. An explanation below :

Very simply, the function of the lungs is to absorb oxygen, a gas that your body needs

to function, and expel carbon dioxide, a "waste gas" that your body can't use (no,

not that kind of waste gas!). But nothing is ever as simple as it sounds. When you

breathe in, your diaphragm and other muscles expand to allow room for your lungs to fill. The low air pressure in your empty lungs

enables air from the higher-pressure environment to flow in. The air flows from your nose and mouth, through your

trachea (windpipe) and into your lungs.

How Lungs Work - The Big Trade Off

Once the air reaches the lungs, it flows into increasingly narrow bronchioles (small airways that extend into the lobes of the lungs)

until it reaches the alveoli (tiny, thin-walled sacks). Once in the alveoli, the oxygen in the air passes through the thin membrane

walls and into the pulmonary capillary. From there, the oxygen binds to the haemoglobin in red blood cells. The red blood cells

give back carbon dioxide, which then goes back through the membrane, into the alveoli, through the bronchioles, into the lungs

and - whoosh - is exhaled back out of your body. The oxygen that was passed off to the red blood cells is then circulated around

your body.

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Alternatively you may wish to share the video clips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMuWpacZmPQ (simpler) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SejXhR6kEvg (greater detail)

Possible Questions/ Suggestions for discussion What happens to your breathing after exercise? What could be the reasons for that? What happens after you have rested? Why does that happen? Is there anything people do that can damage their lungs?

Teacher Demonstration

Teacher Demonstration 1:‘Smokey Sue’

Smokey Sue

Cigarette

Ethanol

Cloth THIS MUST BE DONE OUTSIDE AND AT A SAFE DISTANCE FROM THE CHILDREN.

1. Place a lighted cigarette in the mouth of Smokey Sue. 2. Squeeze her chest. 3. Repeat until the cigarette is finished. 4. Remove the tube from Smokey Sue and show children the “muck” collected from a single cigarette.

Ask students to say what they see and what they think are some of the problems with smoking – showing some clips of lung cancer from YouTube is always good here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0mUHzmnN_4&feature=related AFTER USE PLEASE POUR A LITTLE ETHANOL ONTO A CLOTH TO CLEAN THE TUBE. ENSURE YOU ARE WEARING GLOVES. Teacher Demonstration 2: Aspirator to measure lung capacity

5ltr bottle

Plastic tank

Tube

Beehive

Sterilising tablets

Masking tape

250ml Measuring cylinder

Food colouring

1. Attach a strip of tape to the 5l bottle from top to bottom. 2. Use the measuring cylinder to add 250 ml of coloured water to the bottle. Use the pen to mark the water level on the

strip of masking tape. 3. Repeat the previous step until the bottle is marked to the top. 4. Fill the tank with water to a depth of around 10 cm and place the large bottle upright in the tub, on top of the beehive. 5. Fill the bottle to the very top. Place your hand over the top of the bottle. Invert the bottle into the tub of water. Don't

remove your hand until the bottle neck is under the water. Insert one end of the tubing into the neck of the bottle, through the beehive.

6. Hold the tube, take a deep breath and blow until it feels like there is no air left in your lungs. 7. Measure how much air is in the bottle (count the marks). 8. To calculate your lung capacity multiply the number of marks by 250 and then divide by 1000.

e.g. 13 x 250 = 3250 ml / 1000 = 3.25 litres

Video demonstration available at: http://www.glasgowsciencecentre.org/teacher-resources/lung-capacity.html

Ensure you clean the tube thoroughly before another person uses it.

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Children’s Investigation

Investigation 1: Making a model lung with a pop bottle

Pupils can make their own model lung. The thorax is represented by the pop bottle and the straw represents the trachea/bronchus. One balloon represents the lung and the other balloon, the diaphragm.

Each pair will need: 2 balloons, a straw, a pencil, scissors, 500ml bottle, 2cm ball of blutack and an elastic band.

Full instructions are available from:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBv2BqqAydE&feature=related

The model is good because it shows simply how the movement of the diaphragm moves air in and out of the lungs. Its weaknesses are that there is only one lung instead of two, the lung does not fill the thorax enough and this thorax does not contribute to breathing. However, it is a good enough model to explain breathing.

Once the pupils have made their model of the human lungs, ask them questions to check their understanding about where they are in the body, what their function is. As an extension, challenge the pupils to identify the strengths and weaknesses of their models.

Investigation 2: Exercise and breathing Show children how to use the peak flow meter: Stand up, take a very deep breath and blow hard into the meter to get the best reading possible. Some may have used it at the doctors. Explain it is used to measure air flow. Children are going to measure their air flow before and after exercise. Either issue a simple results table or use the opportunity to get the class to draw their own.

Exercise Breaths every

20s Before

Breaths every

20s After

Difference

Press Ups

Running for 1 min

Hopping

Star jumps

Etc.

The peak flow experiment can run over three weeks. Simply set up an Excel spreadsheet to record the class information as follows.

Names Day /

Time

Mon Tues etc

Ben AM BE* BE

IAE* IAE

AR* AR

PM BE BE

IAE IAE

AR AR

Sian AM BE BE

*BE = Before exercise, IAE = Immediately after exercise, AR = After rest Note on peak flow meters The peak flow meter works by measuring how fast air comes out of the lungs when you exhale forcefully after inhaling fully. This measure is called a "peak expiratory flow”, or "PEF." Measuring the change in your PEF is one way you can see if exercise increases your peak flow (also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_expiratory_flow)

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Possible Questions/ Suggestions for discussion

What patterns can we see from our data? Are there any results we feel are wrong? Why could that be? Is there a difference between girls and boys? How could we improve our investigation?

Learning Outcomes All children should

Learn that different forms of exercise cause breathing rate to change. Develop the skill of evaluating a scientific investigation. Make predictions about which types of exercise will cause the biggest change in

breathing rate. Learn that we breathe in order to get oxygen into our bodies and remove carbon

dioxide.

Some children could Understand that the lungs expand when you breathe in and contract when you

exhale. Know that smoking is very dangerous and can leave ‘tar’ trapped in the lungs for

years. Develop the skill of identifying problems within an experiment and suggest ways

of improving it. Explain the role of the lungs in the human body.

A few children could Be able to explain in detail anomalies that occurred in their data and how these

could be prevented. Explain the process of breathing with reference to parts of the respiratory

system. Muscles need oxygen to work and that they work harder during exercise and so

you need to breathe more oxygen in.

Plenary/Review including Skills Progression focus: Evaluation Evaluation involves critically considering the reliability of the data and discussing how it can be improved. Pupils explain whether their evidence is robust enough to support a firm conclusion. They also suggest ideas to enable their investigation to provide additional relevant evidence.

Through whole class discussion elicit from the pupils what they observed. What do children think they needed to do to ensure that they would get the same results if they or someone else was to

repeat this experiment? The class should write on their experiment sheets an agreed definition for the term ‘valid data’. How could this experiment be improved to make the data more precise, accurate and valid?

In what ways might data from this type of experiment be useful in the real world? Can children think of another investigation which would produce similar results?

Useful websites Use of peak flow meter: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_expiratory_flow Breathing Exercises: http://move-with-me.com/self-regulation/4-breathing-exercises-for-kids-to-empower-calm-and-self-regulate/ More breathing exercises: http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/more/pshe/chillskills2.htm

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NOTES: