Understanding Cellular Respiration and Photosynthesis

Obtaining Energy From Food

•    What happened when you breathed in, through your lungs

•    Then through your Blood

•    Then through your cell

•    Then through your mitochondria

•    Then through the carbon dioxide released

•    then through your blood

•    then through your lungs

•    Then breathing out.

1.  In only about 20 words, explain this “burning” process.  Complete sentences not needed.

2.  Your carbon source of choice are molecules of.

How many pounds of this substance does the average person “burn” in one day?

3.  Of this amount, how much is burned by the brain?

4.  What chemical ingredients do plants require from the environment to synthesize their own food?

Text Def (The process by which plants, algae, and some bacteria transform light energy into chemical energy stored in the bonds of sugars.This proves requires the input of carbon dioxide and water and produces oxygen as a waste product.)   

5.  So how is photosynthesis different from cellular respiration?

Text Def (An organism that makes its own food from inorganic ingredients, thereby sustaining itself without eating other organisms or their molecules.  Plants, algae, and photosynthetic bacteria are autotrophs.) 

6.  If you were an Autotrophs  which one would you be?

Text Def (An organism that cannot make its own organic food molecules from inorganic ingredients and must obtain them by consuming other organisms or their organic products; a consumer (such as an animal) or a decomposer (such as fungus in a food chain).

6.  If you were an Heterotrophs which one would you be?

7.  How about the carbon dioxide as a gas. The carbon in “carbon dioxide” is the carbon in the carbohydrates the plants make. How does this gas get into the plant?

8.  Plants need more than just carbon dioxide and water to survive.  Let’s call this stuff, nutrients rather than food. Nutrients such as nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus.  Where do these coming from?

How does this stuff get up to all the plant cells?

Text Def (An organism that makes organic food molecules from carbon dioxide, water, and other inorganic raw materials; a plant, alga, or autotrophic bacterium; the trophic level that supports all others in the food chain or food web.)

9.  If you were a Producers, which one would you be Why? 

Are you not already a producer?

Text Def (An organism that obtains its food by eating plants or by eating animals that have eaten plants.)

10.  If you were a Producer, which one would you be?

Your aerobic capacity is:

•    The maximum rate at which O2 can be taken in and used by your muscle cells and 

•    Therefore the most strenuous exercise that your body can maintain aerobically.

11.    Complete the table that compares the roles of producers and consumers in an ecosystem.

12.    List the consumer(s) and producer(s) from Figure 6.2 on page 93 of your textbook.

Text Def (The aerobic harvesting of energy from food molecules; the energy-releasing chemical breakdown of food molecules, such as glucose and the storage of potential energy in a form that cells can use to perform work; involves glycolysis, the citric acid cycle, the electron transport chain, and chemiosmosis.)

Text Def (containing or requiring molecular oxygen)

If you work even harder and exceed your aerobic capacity:

•    The demand for oxygen in your muscles will outstrip your body’s

•    Metabolism then becomes

•    Your muscle cells switch to an “emergency mode” in which they

From Prof Soper: (not requiring molecular oxygen). Can your muscles produce energy without molecular oxygen?

How does energy flow?

How do chemicals cycle?

Stages of Cellular Respiration

•    Glycolysis

•    Citric Acid Cycle

•    Electron Transport

•    Cellular respiration uses O2 to convert the energy stored in the chemical bonds of sugars to another source of chemical energy called adenosine triphosphate (ATP).

•    In plants and animals, the production of ATP during cellular respiration occurs mainly in mitochondria.

•    The waste products of cellular respiration are CO2 and H2O, the very same ingredients used for photosynthesis.