✩ Background knowledge

The pulse of life

When your heart beats, it pumps blood to parts of your body through vessels
called arteries and veins. Arteries carry blood away from your heart to the rest
of your body, while veins return blood to your heart. Where an artery crosses a
bone, you can press a finger against your skin to feel the blood pumping. This
is called your pulse. It is a measure of how fast your heart is beating. A child’s
pulse is usually about 70 to 80 beats per minute.

Science activity
A doctor found that a girl’s pulse was 80 beats per minute.
After running slowly for 1 minute, her pulse went up to 120
beats per minute. After skipping for another minute, her pulse
was 170 beats. After resting for 2 minutes, her pulse was 140 beats.

Using the chart below, draw a bar graph of the results.

What effect does exercise have on the girl’s pulse?
............................................................................ Science investigation
170 Find your pulse by
160 pressing your first two
150 fingers against the
140 underside of your wrist,
130 below the thumb. Now go
120 Design and12-1
to website conduct an
to learn
110
experiment
how to taketoandseemeasure
how
Pulse (number of beats per minute)

100
your pulse before
rate changes
and
after exercise. Design and
90
80
conduct an experiment to
see how your pulse rate
70
changes after exercise.
60
Also try the activity on
50
website 12-2.
40
30
20
10
0
Resting Running Skipping Resting
slowly

12

© Dorling Kindersley Limited [2010]

12 ✩ Background knowledge
The pulse of life 13
When your heart beats, it pumps blood to parts of your body through vessels
called arteries and veins. Arteries carry blood away from your heart to the rest
of your body, while veins return blood to your heart. Where an artery crosses a
bone, you can press a finger against your skin to feel the blood pumping. This
is called your pulse. It is a measure of how fast your heart is beating. A child’s
pulse is usually about 70 to 80 beats per minute.

Science activity
A doctor found that a girl’s pulse was 80 beats per minute.
After running slowly for 1 minute, her pulse went up to 120
beats per minute. After skipping for another minute, her pulse
was 170 beats. After resting for 2 minutes, her pulse was 140 beats.

Using the chart below, draw a bar graph of the results.

What effect does exercise have on the girl’s pulse?
It makes her pulse go up.
............................................................................ Science investigation
170 Exercise makes the
160 heart beat faster,
150 providing more oxygen
140 and food to muscles.
130 The pulse rate is the
120 same if felt on different
110
parts of the body, such
Pulse (number of beats per minute)

100
as the temple and neck.
90
Children with
respiratory ailments
80
should be careful when
70
exercising.
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Resting Running Skipping Resting
slowly

Exercise makes the heart beat faster, providing more

oxygen and food©to muscles.
Dorling The [2010]
Kindersley Limited pulse rate is the same
if felt on different parts of the body, such as the temple