The Digestive System Lab

1. In this lab we measured parts of our body, such as the mouth, esophagus, and hand, to find out just how long our digestive system really is. It was really interesting to see how much longer my digestive system is compared to my height.

2. My digestive system is (9.25-1.73) 7.52m longer than me. I think it is able to fit inside my abdomen due to the fact that it is so tightly packed and folded up. The small intestine is very long (mine is 6.9m), and I think that it fits because it is very compressed and packed in. Because there are so many folds, it manages to squash in.

3. I'm guessing it takes around 12-14 hours for food to move through the entire digestive system, especially since the small intestine is so long. I looked it up, and it turns out it takes 24 to 44 hours, depending on the food. I was pretty far off, it's pretty surprising how long food stays in our body. It turns out that most of that time is spent in the large intestine, where nutrients that weren't absorbed during its' time in the small intestine are absorbed, and water is removed.

4. While digestion is the breaking down of the food, which occurs in the mouth, esophasgus, and stomach, absorption is when the nutrients are taken into the blood stream, which happens in the small and large intestines.

5. I'm interested in what foods mean a shorter/ longer time to pass through the digestive system and why.