By David and Darrell

About the Circulatory System

Your Circulatory System is made of the heart, blood, arteries, veins, capillaries, and blood cells. Your heart pumps the blood so that it goes through your body. Without your heart, your blood would not go around and you would die. Your Circulatory System has some major jobs. It carries oxygen to your lungs. It transports nutrients for your body. It fights germs and removes waste.

About the Circulatory System

The Heart and Red Blood Cells

Your heart pumps the red blood cells, rich with food and oxygen, from the left side of your heart through your arteries. When it reaches your capillaries it drops off the food and oxygen. Veins take the blood back to the right side of your heart. Then, it all starts over again.

How Your Circulatory System Works

White Blood Cells

Your white blood cells do a major job. When germs

come into your body the white blood cells kill the

germs. The plasma takes the white cells to where the

germs are. So they can kill them. That helps you so

you don’t get sick.

More About the Circulatory System

Platelets and Plasma

Your plasma carries your red blood cells, white blood

cells, water, calcium, sodium, magnesium, and

potassium.

Your platelets are important, too. When you get a cut

or bruise your platelets block it up. So you stop the

bleeding so you don’t bleed to death.

Even More About the Circulatory System

• An adults heart holds 240 miles of blood.

• Your heart beats three billion times in a lifetime.

• 8 million blood cells die each second and the same

number are born.

• Red blood cells live for four months.

• In a tiny droplet of blood there are 500 blood cells.

Amazing Facts About the Circulatory System

• Your heart beats 70 times a minute.

• It only takes 20 seconds for a red blood cell to circle the whole body.

• Your heart beats faster when you’re scared or excited.

• Did you know that in your lifetime your heart pumps enough blood to fill 100 king-size swimming pools?

• Red blood cells make approximately 250,000 trips around the body before returning to the bone marrow, where they were born, to die.

More Amazing Facts About the Circulatory System

To take good care of

your Circulatory

System you need lots of

exercise. You also need

lots of good food and

water. You need to

avoid getting hurt

because you can

damage your system.

How to Take Care of Your Circulatory System

Your heart is one of the most important parts of

your Circulatory System. Your muscular heart

moves everything around - like blood cells,

plasma, and platelets. To keep your heart healthy

you need lots of exercise and good food.

How to Care for Your Heart

Amazing Human Body CD-ROM. New York: DK Interactive Learning, 1997.

Discovery Communications Inc. "Your Gross & Cool Body." The Yuckiest Site on the Internet 2000. On-line. Internet. June 15, 2001.Available: http://yucky.kids.discovery.com/flash/body/

McGann, Andrew. “The Skeletal System.” A Look Inside the Human Body. On-line. Internet. June 15, 2001.Available: http://bart.northnet.com.au/~amcgann/body/index.html

Scholastic. The Magic School Bus Explores the Human Body CD-ROM. Microsoft Corporation, 1995.

Ward R, Brian.” The Heart And Blood”.Great Britain:Franklin Watts Limited, 1982.

Bibliography