Posted by I created my STEAM project to show the constriction of bronchioles during an asthma attack. It was hard to portray with the materials on hand and capturing it on video but hopefully the idea is there!
The bronchioles end in the alveoli, the sacs where gas exchange takes place- it’s here that carbon dioxide from the blood diffuses into the alveoli to be exhaled, while oxygen that is inhaled crosses into the blood to be distributed through the body. Obviously with such an essential process taking place here, it’s important that every passageway leading here is clear and functioning. My project shows what happens with asthma when the bronchioles become constricted and fluid filled which hampers not only basic breathing but the specific and very important gas exchange too.
The purple straw in my video is a healthy bronchiole: smooth on the outside, open, wide, and free of obstruction. The plastic white straw represents a damaged bronchiole due to asthma: it’s constricted, misshapen, narrower, and also is lined with “mucus”. The mucus is shown by honey and the smoothie stayed the same (consistency wise) except for the fact that I drank some between takes 🙂 the video was too big to upload so it should be accessible by
I embedded it for you
Jaci has shown us a very visual example oh how our bronchioles react in the event of an asthma attack. Representing a healthy bronchiole, the lumen of the purple straw shows us how easily gases can pass through under normal circumstances. However, during an attack the opening shrinks and is lined with mucus and turns into what is represented by the white straw. This constriction of the air flow decreases the total volume of gas that may pass through the bronchioles.