Respiratory Organs

We will be spending a day in lab on the respiratory system. During that day, you will be learning the anatomy of the respiratory system. Most of the information in this section of your textbook (pp. 740 - 751) will be covered in lab. However, that will not be done until next Monday, April 5. So I will give you some background here, and then present the details that we will not cover in lab.

The respiratory organs include all of those organs involved with breathing, so your nose, mouth, trachea, lungs, and other organs are all included in this category. Another respiratory organ to consider is the larynx... that is because the only reason that we can speak is that we can control breathing to force air through the larynx. Overview figure of all the respiratory organs All of the respiratory organs can be considered to be either upper or lower respiratory tract organs. So, the nose and mouth fit into the upper respiratory tract category, while the larynx and lungs fit into the lower respiratory tract category. To keep the webpages from getting too lengthy, I have separated these two categories out.

This figure is from your book, and it points out all of the major respiratory organs from both the upper and lower respiratory tracts. Please note that the mouth isn't considered a "respiratory organ" specifically... that is because it is also a digestive organ. I will be sure to point out how the mouth feeds into the respiratory system in these pages, since we all know we can breathe through our mouths.