---
title: "Nutrient Transport in Animals"
description: "Describe how nutrients and water are transported within animals, including the role of the circulatory system in delivering nutrients from digestion"
canonical: https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/nutrient-transport-in-animals-mt_YSyjTZfjvv
source: https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/nutrient-transport-in-animals-mt_YSyjTZfjvv.md
retrieved: 2026-10-19
---

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# Nutrient Transport in Animals

Describe how nutrients and water are transported within animals, including the role of the circulatory system in delivering nutrients from digestion

Subject: Science · Area: Organisms & Life Processes · Ages 10 to 11
Page: https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/nutrient-transport-in-animals-mt_YSyjTZfjvv

## Ready when they can

- Describe how many nutrients, including simple sugars, pass through the wall of the small intestine into the blood
- Explain that blood transports dissolved nutrients and water to all parts of the body
- Connect the digestive system and circulatory system as working together to deliver nourishment

## Lesson: From Your Lunch to Your Muscles

You have learned where food travels and how the heart pumps blood. Digestion breaks large food molecules into smaller molecules the body can absorb. Chewing alone does not finish this job. In the small intestine, many nutrients, including simple sugars, cross the intestine wall into nearby blood vessels. Whole food lumps cannot cross this way.

*(drawing: Follow sugar from digested food, not a whole food lump. Blood transports it toward muscle cells.)*

Blood carries dissolved nutrients and water in its liquid part. It also contains blood cells. The heart pumps blood through vessels to organs such as the brain and muscles. Near body cells, nutrients and water can leave tiny vessels called capillaries. They enter the fluid around cells, from which cells take what they need.

**Example.** After a rice meal, digestion breaks starch down into simple sugars. This breakdown finishes in the small intestine. A sugar can then cross the small-intestine wall into blood. Blood carries it onward, and muscle cells can use it for energy. For this sugar, release by digestion comes before absorption, which comes before delivery to muscles.

Water from food and drinks crosses the gut wall into the body without being digested into smaller food molecules. Most water absorption happens in the small intestine. The large intestine absorbs some water too. Blood transports absorbed water around the body.

The digestive system breaks food down and absorbs nutrients. The circulatory system carries absorbed nutrients and water around the body. Some absorbed fats first travel in lymph, a fluid in another set of vessels, before entering blood. Digestion and circulation work together: breaking food down and delivering nutrients to distant cells are different jobs.

**Recap.** Digestion releases nutrients. Many enter blood through the small-intestine wall. Blood carries nutrients and water toward cells throughout the body.

## Practice

8 questions on this page, each with its working shown.

## Needs first

- [The Circulatory System](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/the-circulatory-system-mt_BX4D8cCFtQ)
- [Organ Systems Vocabulary](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/organ-systems-vocabulary-mt_K8DJzqbksM)
- [The Digestive System](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/the-digestive-system-mt_Ruk2-lyGPZ)

## Opens up

- [Heart Structure & Double Circulation](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/heart-structure-and-double-circulation-mt_TR2oTy9c2M)