How does the body work?

There are lots of different body systems that cooperate to keep the body working.

The Nervous system
The brain is the control center of the Nervous system, it sends messages around your body using nerves. The messages tell your heart to pump, your muscles to move and your lungs to breath. If you didn't have a Nervous system you couldn't do anything.

The Muscular system
The Muscular system helps your body move, every muscle is attached to a bone. To work a muscle must contract, when it contracts it moves the bone it is attached to. A muscle contracts when a message reaches it through a nerve.

The Circulatory system
The heart pumps blood through arteries to the lungs where it collects oxygen to supply to the muscles and tissues. When the blood doesn't have any oxygen in it, it travels back along a vein to the heart where it gets pumped back to the lungs.

The Skeletal system
The Skeletal system is the structure of the whole body. Where your bones meet it is like a hinge enabling you to move. There are 206 bones in an adults skeleton. if you didn't have any bones you would just collapse.

Together these systems help keep the body going through the day. Now you know how some parts of the body work.

By Skye