Respiratory System- Interactive Activities and Worksheets for Middle School

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Are you searching for ways challenge your students creative thinking skills as you dive into the body systems? Do you want to create working models with your students that get them thinking critically about how it all works? If so, these hands-on, critical thinking activities and challenges about the respiratory system are perfect for you and your middle school students! This lesson packet is filled with activities and resources perfect for the middle school life science classroom. Start with a 2-part phenomena activity in which students first engage in an engineering challenge to make a balloon inflate on its own then build a working model of the respiratory system. PowerPoint, PDF, and Google Slides instructions with pictures are all included to make the model build as incredibly user-friendly! The lesson can be taught as a stand-alone or as part of the Cellular Respiration and Metabolism Unit. Students continue their inquiry into the respiratory system with a reading passage, teacher led slides and video, journey through the respiratory system worksheet, and a check-for-understanding 2-question assessment at the end of the lesson.

Students will investigate the question: How does the respiratory system operate in order to bring air into the body and extract the needed oxygen molecules from all other gas molecules found in the air.

Recommended Age Group: middle school, grades 6-8

Included Materials:

➜ Student worksheets and teacher instructions for inquiry-based 2-part phenomenon activity- an engineering challenge and a build of a respiratory system model.

➜ Reading passage with 3 formats available for differentiation (a standard PDF, an interactive “note-taking” style, and a digital version available through Google Slides)

➜ Teacher presentation slides on the respiratory system (both PowerPoint and Google Slides formats included)

➜ Teacher presentation video link on the respiratory system

➜ Journey Through the Respiratory System student worksheet

➜ Check-for-understanding assessment questions for end of lesson check-in, 3 versions of the questions included to allow for differentiation (all 3 versions are available in PDF and Google Slides format)

➜ Teaching Guide

Materials needed for model:

➜ clear cups

➜ straws (12-inch and water balloon)

➜ rubber bands

➜ Masking Tape

➜ Straws

This lesson is part of a focus on the following NGSS standards:

MS-LS1-7: Develop a model to describe how food is rearranged through chemical reactions forming new molecules that support growth and/or release energy as this matter moves through an organism.

MS-LS1-3: Use argument supported by evidence for how the body is a system of interacting subsystems composed of groups of cells.

The standards is covered fully in the unit bundle.

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