A glass human chest with both lungs full of glowing turquoise air, the airway tree branching from the windpipe down to the diaphragm

Breathing and Respiration: an interactive 3D biology lesson

An interactive biology lesson for students of about 11–16 (KS3, GCSE and IGCSE, middle school) that follows one breath of oxygen through a glass human body, from the air in the room to a working muscle and back out. Ten rooms, each a short guided tour, then a hands-on step and two check-yourself questions: breathing in with the diaphragm and ribs, the airway tree splitting 23 times, about 480 million air sacs unfolding to cover a badminton court, oxygen diffusing across a wall 100 times thinner than a hair, red blood cells loading oxygen onto haemoglobin, the heart and the valves that make the lub-dub, the double circulation through the lungs and the body, aerobic respiration inside a mitochondrion, exercise and the oxygen debt, and testing breathed-out air with limewater. A scale ring dives from the whole body down to a single cell, and every sound is a real recording.

Demos
A glass human chest with both lungs full of glowing turquoise air, the airway tree branching from the windpipe down to the diaphragm

Interactive 3D demo

Breathing and Respiration

An interactive 3D biology lesson: follow one breath of oxygen from the lungs to the blood, the heart and the cells, with a hands-on step at each stage.

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