When we breathe in, air goes through our mouth or nose, down our wind pipe (trachea) and into our chest. I quote: "The windpipe branches into 2 bronchi, one going to the left and right lung." The bronchi is similar to a tree because it branches many times to form smaller bronchi and then to even smaller tubes called bronchioles. I quote: “These tubes progressively branch 22 additional times to form more than 100,000 smaller tubes” Each one of the bronchioles turns into tiny, bubble-like air sacs called alveoli. It's the alveoli which makes the lungs in our body spongy.
Alveoli are small, hollow air sacks found everywhere on both lungs it is important because oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange through the capillaries (very small blood vessels) in them and it helps us breathe in and breathe out.
Each one of the alveoli receives blood from the circulatory system; it replaces carbon dioxide with oxygen. I quote: “The circulatory system then delivers the oxygen to cells throughout the body, bringing more wastes back to the lungs.” The smallest airways end in alveoli’s.
There are aprox. 300 million to 400 million alveoli in each lung. They are 0.3 mm in diameter.
The difference between alveoli and our lungs is that our lungs are two big organs that oxygen goes through and carbon dioxide goes out off, alveoli is what our lungs are made out of.
http://kidshealth.org/kid/htbw/lungs.html
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