What’s Your Lung Capacity?

Today you will make a calibrated, or marked, container that you will use to measure your lung capacity. You will fill the calibrated container with water, slide a hose into it, take a really deep breath, and blow in the hose. As the air in your lungs enters the container, it will push out the water inside. Just blow as long and as much as you can, then when you flip the bottle over you will be able to read the amount of water you have displaced. If you will subtract the water displaced from the total amount of water in the bottle, the result is your lung capacity.

Here’s what you need

    • 1 2-liter soda bottle
    • 1 black marker, permanent
    • 1 12” length of rubber hose
    • 1 large plastic bowl
    • 1 cup measure


 

Here’s what you do

  1. Fill the 1 cup measure with water. Pour this into the 2-liter bottle and mark the water level with a line using the black, permanent marker. Also, write 1 cup next to the line. Keep adding water, one cup at a time, marking each new 1 cup increment until you have filled the bottle with water.
  2. Now flip the newly-filled bottle of water over 1 cup measure until the cup is about 1/3 full. Put one end of the rubber hose in the top of the bottle (which should be now under water).
  3. Take a really deep breath – as deep as you can – and blow your breath out into the tube. Continue to blow until you can’t push any more air into the bottle. As air goes in the bottle, it pushes an amount of water equal to its volume out and into the bowl.
  4. Put the lid on the bottle and turn it over before lifting it out of the water. How much water is left in the bottle? Subtract this amount from 8.5 cups. This should be your lung capacity.
  5. Record your lung capacity in your data records as, “My lung capacity is ____________ cups.”  You can convert this number to milliliters by multiplying by 0.24. For example, 19 cups would equal 4.5 liters.

What’s going on?

A person who is 70 years old has breathed about 600,000,000 times in their life. But they have also breathed a lot of air – about 13,000,000 cubic feet. This is enough air to fill 52 blimps!

A man’s lungs have a greater capacity than a woman’s – it’s about 6 liters for a man and 4.2 liters for a woman. And since a grown-up has a greater lung capacity than a kid, it makes sense that a 10-year old might breathe 20 times per minute when a grown-up might breathe only 12 times in a minute.

Exercises

  1. Which body system are your lungs a part of?
  2. What are some other parts in this system?
  3. Explain this system’s major function.