Photosynthesis and Cellular Respiration Foldable

Photosynthesis and Cellular Respiration
Side by Side Foldable cover

If it is one thing I want my biology students to remember when they leave my class is to understand the interconnectedness of the two major energy systems in living organisms - photosynthesis and cellular respiration. This is the circle of life (imagine the theme song from The Lion King playing here).

For this foldable, take a sheet of paper, fold almost in half in order to allow a little overhang to serve as the folding closure. Cut down the middle to form the two half flaps.

I have also done this assignment in interactive notebooks.

Inside of Foldable 

As you can see, they used their textbooks to draw the diagrams of the chloroplast and mitochondria including all labels. Inside they diagramed the Light Dependent and Light Independent processes of photosynthesis and the three stages of respiration - glycolysis, Krebs (Citric Acid) cycle, and electron transport chain. The last diagram is essentially the carbon cycle showing how plants (which carry out both functions) and animals are related. Plants capture energy from the sun in order to make ATP which provides the energy for the chemical reactions converting carbon dioxide and water into sugars. The plants can then use those sugars (more importantly for us humans who eat the plants) to carry out cellular respiration to make ATP to provide the energy for all of life's processes - growth, reproduction, movement, etc.

"And yes, I want you to use color!" - answer to most commonly asked student question

It's working...

While Stumbling one day I came across a blog that described growing or should I say Re-growing celeryfrom its stalk. I decided to give it a try. It took some time but the first thing I noticed was the "greening" of the stalks as the exposure to the sunlight and access to water stimulated photosynthesis. Then from the base I began to see the formation of roots which have continued to elongate and multiply. Lastly, from the center is evidence of leaf formation. I have been keeping it on a sunny sill or what can be called a sunny sill as we approach the winter solstice. I'm also making sure to keep it well watered. Eventually I will transfer it to soil and hopefully come spring time put it out in the garden. Since I will be having the students doing an osmosis lab later this week using celery perhaps we will set one of these experiments in the lab to watch the process.

Here you can see the roots forming
at the base of the stalk

Notice the small leaf formation in
the very center.