Thursday, December 11, 2014

Bioenergetics Review

Tomorrow's the BIG day!!!!  We have our bioenergetics exam.  

Our "I can statements....."


 What should you be looking over?  Daily Questions - the Daily Question Quiz - The Vocab Review we did today - The Energy in living systems worksheet you did last week - The study guides - The Study Island Practice test and review session.
**Don't have the study guides??? Click here!!!https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B36SoMWuuJZEU0t3UW1TQ0NleHc/view?usp=sharing
LOTs of places to prepare for this!!!

Today we did the Review Challenge as we always do.  This time we started with a vocabulary review.




Then we moved to the Study Island Questions:  PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE log on tonight if you are able and practice more of these questions!!!
(Click on Link - Username:  First.Last@ECASD  Password:  Student ID

Here were some of the questions we had today during the review:




I also went over the Energy in Living Systems Questions from Last Week:
 

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Wrap Up Cellular Respiration and Some real world "WHY SHOULD WE CARE????" moments!!!

We finished up Cellular Respiration today - REMEMBER OUR TEST IS ON FRIDAY!!!!!!!!!
Daily Questions:
For some of the discussion around this please watch the following screen cast.



Yesterday we learned the difference between Aerobic and Anaerobic respiration and the FIRST steps of cellular respiration (whether it be in a prokaryote or eukaryote)

Today we went through the next two options:



This chapter has a WHOLE lot of things that are hard to "picture" in your minds.  I have been searching for ways to make this "real" to you.  We used the pop it bead models to go through photosynthesis.  To "See" the production of Carbon Dioxide - we used A solution with a pH indicator called Bromothymol Blue which is BLUE at a neutral pH and turns a Green or Yellow color in an acid pH.  When Carbon Dioxide and water mix the Carbonic Acid is formed.

Sooooooooo - I let you blow bubbles today to show you that we do in fact breath out Carbon dioxide.



What happens when Oxygen is no available (or you are an organism that doesn't have mitochondria........)

Hopefully you all have felt "Lactic Acid Burn" sometime in your life......  What happens here is your NEED for oxygen is greater than your bodies ability to bind and transfer oxygen, so instead your cells convert the pyruvate created during Glycolysis into Lactate (lactic acid)

How much oxygen do we actually breath in?????
Why does this matter???? Well.... The "fitter" you are (the more ENDURANCE you have) - The more oxygen you are able to bind with any given breath!!
 

What about Alcoholic Fermentation???  We often times think this ONLY happens in organisms like yeast - But it actually happens in US as well.....  Now - Any ethanol produced by our cells is generally split back apart by enzymes in our liver.   BUT...... There have been cases of people that ethanol produced by their own body builds up.
Here is an abstract of a court case dealing with people with "auto-brewery syndrome"

 And here is a news clip of an example:

Continuing through the beautiful flow of energy through living systems - TUESDAY's POST ( A Day late)

Photosynthesis is CONFUSING!!!! PLEASE don't get discouraged.  When we go back to our "I Can" statements you see that I want you to understand the BIG picture of both photosynthesis and cellular respiration.

We are moving on to Cellular respiration today and tomorrow - but today's daily questions really revolved around understanding the energy transformations and leading us into the next topic of cell respiration.




 


 
NO I did not make you write all these steps of glycolysis NOR will I make you learn them.  Why did I show you this then???????  To show you AGAIN how important enzymes are to biochemical reactions. 

Monday, December 8, 2014

Photosynthesis in One big post!!!

We went through Photosynthesis specifically Thursday - Today.  Thursday I was out for a genetics update conference - but you went through the directed reading with the sub and had the following Daily Questions:

He also went through what you had read in the book - and what you should have down in your directed reading - and we went over these TOGETHER on Friday and started to use out Photosynthesis models to "act out" photosynthesis.

 A Really neat way to show you how the colors we SEE are actually what is being REFLECTED is in this YouTube Video:

 

And here is where the Photosynthesis Models Came in:

Light Dependent Reaction:
Water splitting:
Energy from the Sun - Causes electrons to get excited - Water that has entered via the roots.... Gets Split apart......(see next picture)

The Hydrogen ions are then pumped through different photosystems but what WE really care about is that each oxygen binds with one OTHER oxygen to create O2 (molecular oxygen that we breath) which is then released into the atmosphere)

DURING this time - Two energy carriers are created.  Remember.... Energy is STORED in chemical bonds and RELEASED when bonds are broken.  We used out brightly colored beads to represent our energy molecules:
NADP and ADP are in the chloroplast already.
Another Phosphate is Added to ADP to create ATP.
A Hydrogen ion is added to NADP to create NADPH
 These two energy  molecules are what will fuel that second state of photosynthesis.

Today's Daily Questions related to the what we have done so far with photosynthesis:

 
Then we went into the production of Glucose (IN A VERY simplified form)

 



 
Using Carbon Dioxide from the atmosphere (along with a 3 carbon organic compound in the plant) we produced a 6 carbon organic compound. (The picture shows ONLY the carbons - remember thought that glucose has the chemical formula C6H12O6)

The ENERGY required from this came from the transfer of a Phosphate group (the orange bead) and the removal of a H+ from the NADPH)



 
I also made most of you listen to the annoying (but VERY accurate) rap as a wrap up....