Science · 3rd Year

Active learning ideas

The Breathing System

Let's explore the incredible, automatic system that works every second of every day: our breathing system! This topic gets pupils to investigate their own bodies to understand the amazing journey air takes to keep us alive and moving.

• NCCA Curriculum Specifications
• NCCA: Primary School Curriculum, Science - Strand: Living things - Strand unit: Human life (3rd/4th Class)

• 25–45 min
• Pairs → Whole Class
• 3 activities

Activity 01

• Stations Rotation
• 45 min · Pairs

Build a Lung in a Bottle

Pupils construct a simple model of a lung using a plastic bottle, a straw, and balloons. This hands-on activity demonstrates how the diaphragm muscle (represented by a balloon at the bottom) contracts and relaxes to inflate and deflate the lungs.

Explain the journey of air from your nose to your lungs.

Facilitation Tip

Encourage pupils to explain to their partner what each part of the model represents in the human body.

What to look for

Use a 'think-pair-share' activity where pupils first think about how exercise affects breathing, then discuss with a partner, and finally share with the class. Listen to their reasoning to gauge understanding.

• Remember
• Understand
• Apply
• Analyze
• Self-Management
• Relationship Skills

Activity 02

• Stations Rotation
• 25 min · Individual

Breathing Rate Investigation

Pupils work individually to count their number of breaths in one minute while resting. They then do one minute of star jumps or running on the spot and immediately count their breaths again, comparing the two figures to see the effect of exercise.

Analyse the effect of exercise on your breathing rate.

Facilitation Tip

Use a large, visible timer and model how to count one full breath (in and out) to ensure consistency.

What to look for

Pupils create a short comic strip or a series of drawings that illustrates the journey of a breath of air through the respiratory system, labelling the key parts.

• Remember
• Understand
• Apply
• Analyze
• Self-Management
• Relationship Skills

Activity 03

• Stations Rotation
• 30 min · Small Groups

The Journey of Air

In small groups, pupils draw a large outline of a human torso on poster paper. They then draw and label the path air takes from the nose and mouth, down the trachea, and into the branching bronchi of the lungs.

Justify the importance of clean air for healthy lungs.

Facilitation Tip

Provide a word bank of key terms on the board to support pupils with their labelling.

What to look for

Pupils use a 'traffic light' system (red, orange, green dots) to indicate their confidence in explaining the function of the lungs, trachea, and diaphragm.

• Remember
• Understand
• Apply
• Analyze
• Self-Management
• Relationship Skills

A few notes on teaching this unit

Start by making it physical: have pupils take a deep breath and feel their chest expand. Use the 'Build a Lung' model as a central visual aid to explain the abstract movement of the diaphragm. Consistently use the key vocabulary in your explanations and encourage pupils to use it in their discussions to build their scientific language.

Following these activities, pupils will be able to demonstrate how their lungs work using a model and explain why a run around the school yard makes them breathe faster.

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Watch Out for These Misconceptions

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

  We breathe in air, which is a mixture of many gases, including about 21% oxygen. The air we breathe out still contains a lot of the gases we breathed in, but with less oxygen and more carbon dioxide.

• The lungs are like empty bags that just fill up with air.

  The lungs are actually spongy and filled with millions of tiny, branching tubes and tiny air sacs called alveoli. This is where the important job of swapping oxygen for carbon dioxide happens.

• You don't breathe when you are asleep.

  Breathing is an automatic process that our body does all the time, even when we are sleeping. Our brain makes sure we keep breathing to stay alive.

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Methods used in this brief

• Stations Rotation