1. What is surface area?

2. What effect do the villi have on the surface area of the small intestine?

3. What effect did the addition of more paper towels have on the total surface?

4. Explain the effect of total surface area on absorption.

5. Describe the effect of having no villi in your small intestine. What effect would this have on your life and nutrition?

1) surface area is a measure of how much of an object surface is exposed or in contact with it's environment

2) the villi are small finger like projection of the intestine which increases the surface in contact with the digested food and thus increases it's surface area

3) the addition of toilet paper would increase the surface area

4) a large total surface area is necessary for the complex activity of digestion and absorbtion in the intestine as it allows for more nutrients to be absorbed

5) the absence of a villi would greatly affect the absorbtion of digested food. the organism involved will not be able to meet it's nutritive requirements and digested food would be passed out as faeces without being absorbed.

Also the absorption of fat would be affected as the lymphatic capillary responsible for that would absent