Skin: Your Protection
by Alecia Strohl
Your skin plays major roles in keeping your body safe and healthy. Without your skin, you would not survive. Unlike most of your organs, your skin is located on the outside of your body and can be seen. It covers your entire body and helps protect more fragile organs located on the inside of your body. It is part of the integumentary system that also includes hair and nails. Your skin works closely with your nervous system to provide the sense of touch. It contains receptors that allows you to feel sensations and textures. This ability can also protect you from harm. If you accidentally put your hand on a hot surface, your skin feels the heat and your body reacts to move it quickly. Without the sense of touch, your hand could burn badly before you realized your hand was on a hot surface.
Another important function of skin is regulation of body temperature. When a body becomes too hot, skin releases sweat. As the sweat evaporates, it cools the body down. It also helps cool the body through the millions of blood vessels it contains. When the body becomes too hot, blood vessels bring warm blood closer to the skin’s surface to release body heat into the air. Blood vessels also help to contain heat when the body temperature drops. They become narrower and keep warm blood away from the surface to keep body heat inside. The tiny bumps that form on skin when the body becomes cold are caused by tiny muscles that close up and make body hair stand up straight. This helps to insulate the body and keep body heat inside.
Skin acts as a barrier between harmful things in the environment and our fragile internal organs. It is the first line of defense against germs, including bacteria and viruses. It also helps keep harmful amounts of sunlight from reaching internal organs. Some sunlight is beneficial, though. Skin actually uses some sunlight to keep bodies healthy. It makes vitamin D from sunlight, which is necessary for our bodies to absorb calcium for bone strength.
Human bodies are about 60% water. Water allows our bodies to perform all the functions necessary to keep us alive. The skin is made of layers, which helps keep water inside the body. The outermost layer exposed to the environment is called the epidermis. This layer helps make new skin cells and also sheds dead skin cells from the body. The dermis is the second layer, which contains nerve endings, blood vessels, and sweat glands. The third layer is called subcutaneous fat, which helps to hold the skin to the body. Skin has many functions to keep people alive. It provides humans with the sense of touch and helps keep bodies at healthy temperatures. Skin acts as a barrier against germs and other harmful things by keeping them out of the body. It also prevents dehydration and makes vitamin D. All of these functions are necessary for healthy bodies.
Question 1
Another important function of skin is regulation of body temperature.
Based on information given by the author, what helps skin keep the body from becoming too hot?
Responses
Ablood and hair
blood and hair
Bmuscles and sweat
muscles and sweat
Chair and blood vessels
hair and blood vessels
Dsweat and blood vessels