Photosynthesis and Respiration

Activities

• Use this “Photosynthesis / Cell Respiration / Enzymes / Light” Jeopardy Game (ppt).
• Try this Flinn Scientific, Inc. “Respiration versus Photosynthesis” (pdf) activity.
• Have students do this “Energy in a Cell” (word doc) crossword puzzle.
• Or do this “Energy in a Cell” wordsearch puzzle (doc) with answers (doc).
• “The Demise of the Halloween Pumpkin” would be a great activity to start around Halloween. This is an ongoing activity that will last aproximately 3 months. The activity measures energy use, but teaches about setting up controlled experiments and about the decomposing activity of microorganisms. 
• Use this “Photosynthesis” (pdf) tutorial with questions for students to answer.
• Play the “Come On Down (The Electron Transport Chain)” song performed by Sam Reid. (To save the song you can right-click on the link and select “Save Target As.”)
• Play this Quia battleship “Glycolysis” game.
• “The Effects of Light Intensity and Wavelength on the Rate of Photosynthesis” is an activity that uses this photosynthesis animation.
• Do NOVA’s “Illuminating Photosynthesis” activity and have students complete this “Photosynthesis Webquest” worksheet that goes with it.

Labs

• The “Effects of a Closed Environment on Living Things” lab demonstrates how plants use carbon dioxide and produce carbon and how animals use oxygen and produce carbon dioxide.
• This “Do Plants Consume or Release CO2? Or Both?” lab demonstrates how plants carry on both photosynthesis and respiration.
• The “Rate of Photosynthesis” lab explores just that.
• Do the “Leaf Pigment Chromatography” lab (doc).
• This lab (doc) compares the production of starch in leaves kept in the light and those in the dark.
• This “Fermentation by Yeast” lab (doc) can be used in this unit or with the study of microorganisms.
• “Photosynthesis: A Controlled Experiment” illustrates the effect of differing amounts of carbon dioxide on photosynthesis in geranium plants. Coleus or other similar plants could just as easily be used.
• In “The Heat is On – The Energy Stored in Food” students will burn several types of nuts and snack foods in order to determine their heat content per gram.
• In Kim Rebello’s “Every Breath You Take” (doc) lab students investigate whether animals and plants carry on respiration.
• This “Plant Respiration” lab (doc) uses seedlings and a bromothymol blue solution to demonstrate that plants give off CO₂ during respiration.

Links

• Aerobic and anaerobic respiration animations: http://www.sp.uconn.edu/~terry/Common/respiration.html
• Aerobic respiration tutorial: http://www2.nl.edu/jste/aerobic_respiration.htm
• ATP to ADP animation: http://www.biologyinmotion.com/atp/index.html
• Respiration and photosynthesis animations: http://www.science.smith.edu/departments/Biology/Bio231/ 
• Good narrated animation of photosynthesis: http://dendro.cnre.vt.edu/forestbiology/photosynthesis.swf
• Good outline of cellular respiration and photosynthesis  from Kim Rebello.
• Another good photosynthesis animation: http://sun.sunyrockland.edu/Members/kbaker/photo.ppt 
• Good photosynthesis animations with audio: http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072437316/student_view0/chapter10/animations.html#
• Good tutorial on photosynthesis: http://www.ftexploring.com/photosyn/chloroplast.html