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Like the roads through a city, your body has a transportation system called the circulatory
system that connects all parts of your body. The circulatory system carries needed materials
to cells and carries waste products away from cells. Also, blood contains cells that fight disease.
There are 3 functions of the circulatory system:
1) Delivering needed materials: Most materials that need to get from one part of the body to
another are carried by the blood. For example, blood carries oxygen from your lungs to your
other body cells. Blood also carries the sugar your cells use for energy.
2) Removing waste products: The circulatory system picks up wastes from cells. For example,
when cells break down sugars, they make carbon dioxide as a waste product. This carbon
dioxide passes from cells into the blood. The circulatory system then carries the carbon dioxide
to lungs where it can be breathed out of the body.
3) Fighting disease: The circulatory system also carries cells that attack disease-causing
organisms in the body (such as bacteria or viruses). This process can keep you from becoming
sick. If you do get sick, these disease-fighting blood cells will kill the tiny organisms and help
you get better.

Function of the
Circulatory System

What does it do for you?

Give an example of this

function:

After Reading Questions

1. Name the needed materials carried by the circulatory system:

2. Name the waste materials carried away by the circulatory system:

3. How does the circulatory system help fight disease?

4. If the circulatory system only dropped off important materials to cells but did not pick up
waste from cells, what might happen?

The heart works because of its two separate sides. When the heart relaxes, it fills with blood.
When the cardiac muscles contract it pumps the blood out. Each side of the heart has an artery
(to take blood away) and a vein (to bring blood in) but they go in different directions, so they
have different names.
Blood flows in loops because it needs to get oxygen before it goes into the organs of the body.
The blood must go into
the lungs to get
oxygen first, and then
the blood carries that
oxygen to the body.

Red = oxygen-rich blood

Blue= oxygen-poor blood

Loop one: The first loop is to the lungs and back. When blood from the body flows into the right
atrium (top), it has a small amount of oxygen. The oxygen-poor blood comes into the right
ventricle (bottom), which pumps it into the lungs. The air in the lungs has a lot of oxygen in it, so
the oxygen moves into the blood. As the blood leaves the lungs, it is now oxygen-rich. This
blood, which is bright red, flows to the left side of the heart so it can be pumped into the second
loop.
Loop one

Step

What happens (IN YOUR OWN WORDS)

Blood without oxygen coming from the body flows into the right
atrium.

Loop two: The blood now has to go to the body and back to the heart. Remember that the
oxygen-rich blood from the lungs goes into the left atrium of the heart. The blood moves to the
left ventricle of the heart and is pumped out through the largest artery in the bodythe aorta.
The aorta then passes blood to the other arteries going through the body so it can get to every
cell in your body (those in your brain, stomach, legs, etc.). Oxygen moves out of the blood into
these body cells. This blood, which now has lost its oxygen, flows back to the right atrium of the
heart through veins. This completes the loop! But both loops happen every time the heart beats!
Step

Loop two
What happens

The oxygen-rich blood from the lungs goes into the left atrium of the
heart.