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The Human
Body
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KEY ELEMENTS USED IN THIS BOOK
The Big Idea: Humans have a common bond with all other life on Earth.
The Human
All living things are made up of key parts that help them meet their
needs. These parts must work together to keep an organism healthy.
An understanding of how our bodies work can raise our awareness
of our own health, leading us toward safe and healthy practices.
In this way, we can protect our most important asset—our body.
Body Key words: arteries, bladder, blood, bloodstream, body, bone, bone marrow,
brain, brain stem, carbon dioxide, cardiac muscle, cells, cerebellum, cerebrum,
circulatory system, diaphragm, digestive system, esophagus, excretory system,
exhale, healthy, heart, human, inhale, joint, kidneys, large intestine, liver, lungs,
muscles, muscular system, nerves, nervous system, organs, oxygen, pancreas,
pelvis, pulse, respiratory system, ribs, saliva, skeletal muscles, skeletal system,
skull, small intestine, smooth muscle, spine, stomach, sweat, system, tissue,
trachea, veins
Photo Credits: Front cover, page 20 (left): © iStockphoto.com/Mandy Godbehear; title page:
© iStockphoto.com/Elena Elisseeva; page 4: © iStockphoto.com/David Stoddard; page 5 (top left):
© iStockphoto.com/Michael DeLeon; page 5 (top right): © iStockphoto.com Jacek Chabraszewski;
page 5 (bottom left): © iStockphoto.com/Jaren Wicklund; page 7: © Dorling Kindersley/Getty Images;
page 9: © iStockphoto.com/Christian Nasca; pages 10, 17 (fruit): © Jupiterimages Corporation;
page 11 (bottom): © iStockphoto.com/David Joyner; page 13: © iStockphoto.com/Sebastian Kaulitzki;
page 15 (top): © iStockphoto.com/Bogdan Pop; page 15 (bottom left): © iStockphoto.com/
Russell Shively; page 15 (bottom right): © iStockphoto.com/Matthew Cole; page 17 (vegetables):
© Hemera Technologies/Jupiterimages Corporation; page 17 (steak): © iStockphoto.com/Paul Johnson;
page 19: © iStockphoto.com Frances Twitty; page 20 (center): © Cathy Yeulet/123RF; page 20
(right): © iStockphoto.com/Zeljko Santrac
Reading Levels
The Human Body
© Learning A–Z Learning A–Z T
Written by Kira Freed Lexile 860L
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Correlations
All rights reserved.
Fountas and Pinnell* P
www.sciencea-z.com *Correlated independent reading level
Table of Contents Introduction
Conclusion......................................................... 20
Check your knowledge before reading this book.
Glossary.............................................................. 21 What do you know about each of the systems in
your body?
• skeletal system • digestive system
Index................................................................... 22
• muscular system • excretory system
• nervous system • reproductive system
• respiratory system • endocrine system
• circulatory system • immune system
3 4
The Skeletal System
body’s movement.
Your pelvis helps to protect the organs of The muscles that bend The Muscular System
your abdomen. Muscles attached to bones your joints never push—
in your arms and legs help you move. they only pull, which
is why they must work
Long, strong bones provide support for your
in pairs. When one
arms and legs. Your hands, wrists, feet, and
contracts, its partner
ankles contain many smaller bones. Each of
relaxes. Then they
the 206 bones in your body has a special job.
switch jobs.
The place where two bones meet is called
Your body has three
a joint. Some joints bend or rotate, allowing
types of muscles—
you to move in many ways.
skeletal, smooth,
Did you realize that your bones are and cardiac. Skeletal
Muscles
alive? Bones are made of living cells.
This is why bones grow. Spongy
material in the center of bones, Your body has more than
called bone marrow, makes 650 muscles! Almost half
your weight is muscles.
new blood cells.
7 8
The Nervous System
Sit on a chair. Place one
hand on top of your thigh
Your brain is the headquarters of your
and the other hand under your nervous system. It controls nearly everything
thigh. Straighten and bend your you do, including thinking, speaking,
leg. Can you tell when one muscle
contracts and the other one relaxes?
feeling, and most movements. To do its jobs,
your brain uses a network of nerves to
communicate rapidly with every cell. These
Skeletal muscles connect to bones. These
nerves are like telephone wires that carry
strong muscles help you move and are the
messages between your brain and body parts.
only ones you can control.
The Nervous System Thousands of nerves are
Hollow organs—such as your stomach,
brain bundled together in your
intestines, arteries, and veins—contain
spinal
spinal cord, which runs
smooth muscle tissue. These muscles move cord down your spine. Nerves
substances through your body. When you
branch off from your
swallow, smooth muscle tissue
spinal cord and then
moves food toward your stomach.
branch off to smaller
Smooth muscle tissue also moves
and smaller nerve
blood throughout your body.
Cardiac Muscle fibers to reach every
Cardiac muscle is found only in your part of your body.
heart; in fact, almost your entire heart is
cardiac muscle! This amazing muscle works nerves
9 10
Parts of the Brain The Respiratory System
11 12
The Circulatory System
All your cells need oxygen Your heart is the center of your circulatory
to stay alive, and they can system. Your heart has a big job to do,
only survive for a few minutes
without it. Cells need oxygen
pumping blood nonstop to all the cells in
to break down the food you your body.
eat and convert it into energy.
Circulation is the process of moving blood
along the path it travels in your body. First,
In your lungs, smaller and smaller branching
the heart pumps blood
tubes end in tiny air sacs surrounded by small The Circulatory
System to your lungs to pick up
blood vessels. Oxygen seeps through the sac
oxygen. Then the heart
walls and enters your bloodstream. Then, red
pumps oxygen-rich blood
blood cells pick up the oxygen and carry it
veins heart to all your cells. Blood
to all the cells of your body. Your blood also
travels away from your
carries unneeded carbon dioxide from your
heart through arteries.
cells to your lungs so it can leave your body
The blood in arteries is
when you exhale.
bright red because it
Your lungs have no muscles, so they can’t take contains oxygen.
in air on their own. The diaphragm, a sheet
After your blood gives
of muscle under your lungs, contracts and
its oxygen to cells, it
relaxes to allow you to breathe. When you
arteries picks up carbon dioxide
inhale, your diaphragm contracts and moves
and other waste products
down to make room for your lungs to expand
from the cells. Then it
with air. When you exhale, your diaphragm
travels back to the heart
relaxes and moves up, which forces air out of
through your veins.
your lungs.
13 14
The Digestive System
Each red blood cell lives for
Your digestive system breaks down food so
only about four months. It’s a
good thing your body makes new cells all your body’s cells can use it to make energy.
the time. During its short lifetime, a red blood Food enters your body through your mouth.
cell can travel over 482 kilometers (300
As you chew, saliva mixes with the food and
mi.) through your blood vessels!
begins to break it down. When you swallow,
the food travels down the esophagus, a long
Blood in veins is darker in color than the tube, to your stomach. The smooth muscles in
blood in arteries. This is because blood your stomach squeeze the food to break it into
in veins no longer carries oxygen. smaller pieces. Digestive
The Digestive System
If you put your hand over your heart, you chemicals mix with the
can feel your heartbeat. You can feel the same
mouth food and turn it into a
rhythm as blood moves through arteries close mushy substance.
esophagus
to your skin. This rhythm is called your pulse. Next, the food travels
stomach
Notice that your pulse changes depending liver
gall to your small intestine.
on the activities you are doing. bladder pancreas Chemicals from your
liver and pancreas ooze
small into your small intestine
Here are two intestine large
intestine to break down the food
easy places to (colon)
rectum even more. Tiny finger-
feel your pulse:
•o n either side
like structures in the
of your neck, walls of the small
under your chin intestine absorb the
• on the inside
of either wrist
nutrients from the food.
15 16
The Excretory System
Nutrients enter your bloodstream and travel filter out waste chemicals
to your cells to nourish them. Any food that and collect them. This waste respiratory
system
was not absorbed moves on to your large travels from your kidneys
intestine, or colon. There, water from the to your bladder before
remaining food is absorbed into your body, leaving your body as urine.
liver
and unused food continues to move along. digestive
system
You don’t need it all. So the unused portion kidneys
17 18
Your liver is another large organ that removes Conclusion
what your body does not need. It acts as a filter
for poisons. The liver changes a poisonous gas You’ve just read about the main jobs of some
in your body called ammonia into a harmless of your body systems. Each system has many
liquid that your kidneys filter out of your more jobs as well. All your body systems work
blood. This gas would kill your cells if it were all the time to keep you alive and healthy.
allowed to build up in your body. You can take care of all your body systems
Your skin is part by eating healthy food and getting enough
of your excretory exercise and sleep. When you eat and drink
system, too. Tiny the right things, it is easier for your body to
glands in your skin use just what it needs and to get rid of the rest.
make sweat that Exercise keeps your muscles strong—including
comes out at the your heart. And sleep gives your body parts
surface as drops. time to heal.
Your sweat glands Take good care of your amazing body, and
help your body get it will take good care of you!
rid of extra water,
chemicals, and heat.
skin
sweat
19 20
Glossary nerves thin fibers that carry signals between
the brain and other parts of the body
arteries blood vessels that move oxygen-rich
(p. 10)
blood away from the heart toward
the body’s cells (p. 9) skeletal strong muscles that connect to bones
muscles and allow the body to move (p. 9)
bone spongy material that produces blood
marrow cells and is found in the center of small the thin, coiled part of the digestive
bones (p. 7) intestine system in which nutrients are
removed from food and put into the
brain the control center of the nervous
bloodstream (p. 16)
system (p. 5)
smooth muscle that moves substances without
cardiac the type of muscle found in the
muscle a person’s control and is found in
muscle heart (p. 9)
many internal organs (p. 9)
heart the organ that pumps blood
spine a column of bones that provides
throughout the body (p. 5)
the main support for the body;
kidneys a pair of excretory organs that filter the backbone (p. 6)
waste products from blood (p. 18)
stomach the organ where food is mixed and
large the thick, lower end of the digestive partially digested (p. 9)
intestine system in which water is removed
veins blood vessels that carry blood from
from digested food (p. 17)
the body’s cells toward the heart (p. 9)
liver a large excretory organ that filters
blood and helps with digestion (p. 16)
lungs two spongy organs that bring oxygen Index
to the blood and remove carbon bloodstream 13, 17 nutrients 16–17
dioxide from the blood (p. 5)
bones 6–7, 9 oxygen 5, 12–15
muscles body tissues that let the body move carbon dioxide 12–14, 18 pulse 15
by contracting and relaxing (p. 7)
cells 5, 7, 10, 12–17, 19 skin 15, 19
food 8–9, 13, 16–17, 20 sleep 5, 20
21 22