Can you guess what is the largest organ in our body? Is thickest on the soles of our feet and thinnest on our eyelids? And is also made up of three layers?

Our Skin!

Did you know that our skin helps protect us from getting infections and keeps our organs from falling out? It also lets us feel pain, pressure, and touch. It even helps us cool down in the hot summer sun and heat up in the chill of winter.

Check out these skin-tastic facts!

The 3-Layered Skin

 With all these jobs to do, our skin has to be very tough, so it is made up of three different layers. The first layer is the epidermis. This is the part of the skin you can see.

The second layer is the dermis. This is where all our blood vessels and nerves are busy at work.

The last layer is the hypodermis. This is made up of mostly fat and is where hair grows from.

Try This!

Look at you hand. It probably looks quite normal.  But even though you can’t see it, your skin is hard at work making new cells. It can take up to a month to make one new skin cell!  

When new cells are ready, they push up through the epidermis. So when you look at your skin, you’re actually seeing dead cells. In fact, our skin loses about 30,000 to 40,000 dead cells every minute!

Unique Skin

 The skin on the bottom of our fingers and thumb are unique.  These tiny lines and patterns are called, fingerprints.  In fact, there are no two people who have the same design of fingerprints – not even twins!

Did you know every part of your skin has the exact strength and stretch it needs to move?  The skin on our knuckles has a lot more elasticity than the skin on our ears.

It’s a good thing we have skin. It has a very important job that keeps us healthy and happy.  Hooray for our simply skin-tastic skin!