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Videos and Resources for M12
Energy comes from the sun!
☼
I find that interesting, because Spiritual "energy" comes from
the Son. =)
When you eat a green plant, you're eating something that got its energy from the sun.
When you eat meat, you're eating something that
indirectly got its energy from the sun.
When you read your Bible, you are getting your "energy" from the Son.
When you listen to preaching, you are indirectly getting your "energy" from the Son! =)
Oh, I'm just thinking of
all kinds of comparisons now! Keep these thoughts in mind as you read this post. =)
Plants are
producers. They make their own food.
I make chicken and broccoli, but that isn't really
making my own food. I'm just cooking food that is already "made." =)
Plants produce food for many organisms.
Since I eat the food produced by plants, or eat meat that once ate plants, etc, I am a
consumer.
If you are not a producer, you are a consumer. (Unless you're an inanimate object, hehe.)
Even members of kingdom Fungi (such as mushrooms, yeast, or mold) are consumers.
But they do something special -- they do not eat, but decompose their food before ingesting it, so they are classified as
decomposers.
We don't like mold to get on our food, but some molds grow out in nature, like
slime molds. Mushrooms feed on dead organisms, such as the leaves that fall. If not, they would just pile up until you could no longer take walks through the woods!
 |
| 2 pretty omnivores! =) |
Consumers can be further classified as:
- herbivores (eat only producers)
- carnivores (eat only other consumers)
- omnivores (eat both producers and consumers).
All food chains
begin with a green plant, so even though it is indirectly, almost all energy used by living organisms comes from the sun! =)
The exceptions are some exotic bacteria that get energy from chemical reactions. But that happens at the bottom of the ocean, so I'm not going to talk about them.
We get our energy from food through a process that is somewhat like combustion. No, we will not burst into flame; our cells convert food to energy through a very slow combustion-like process.
In
Experiment 12.1, What Combustion Needs, we learned that combustion needs oxygen.
That is why it can be very dangerous to open a window during a fire. The flames will leap toward the window because oxygen "feeds" the fire.
When vinegar mixes with baking soda, it creates carbon dioxide, which does the opposite to fire than what oxygen does.
Watch this clip.
Our bodies need oxygen to help the process of converting food to energy.
In Biology we learn
a lot more about this, and the process is called
Cellular Respiration (takes place in the cell). In General Science, this process is compared to combustion, but I went ahead and taught my students a bit about Cellular Respiration.
Here is a visual image of what is needed and what is produced by Cellular Respiration.
We take in food and oxygen, and produce water, carbon dioxide, and energy.
Since we don't need the carbon dioxide, it is called a waste product, or a by-product, and it is used by another organism - plants.
Plants take in energy from the sun, carbon dioxide, and water, and make food and oxygen.
This is called
Photosynthesis.
The food they make is for themselves, but humans and animals eat it too. The oxygen is not something the plant needs, so it is a by-product - and one from which we benefit.
Do you see the comparison between Cellular Respiration and Photosynthesis?
The processes are opposite one another!
See this image:
God certainly knew what he was doing when He created everything! And just think! He didn't need to try several times to get it right. He made it all from the beginning, perfectly.
Sadly, because of sin, things didn't stay perfect, but He also made
a way of Salvation! Isn't He wonderful!!!
We also did
Experiment 12.2, The Products of Combustion.
We needed a balloon, and the kids got a little silly drawing faces on them. I caught this shot of my daughter Bethany and Courtney. Courtney looks like she needs a little oxygen! =)
The balloon is on the 2-liter bottle for a reason. The experiment said to mix baking soda and vinegar in the bottle, and quickly put the balloon on, making a good seal. (not
this kind)
Remember what vinegar and baking soda make? Carbon dioxide.
As the vinegar and baking soda bubbled and foamed, the balloon filled with the CO
2.
I had previously boiled some red cabbage
(that is purple) and made cabbage juice. The liquid is an indicator for many things, and one of those is carbon dioxide.
The kids held a straw in a glass of cabbage juice and pinched the balloon on the straw, letting the CO
2 bubble into the liquid. After enough CO
2 had gotten into the cabbage juice, it was supposed to turn slightly pink.
← Like this.
I tend to divide the kids up into teams of 2 since it's more fun to do things with a partner, and since 3 or more on a team results in one person doing the work while the others socialize. ;)
Having teams turned out to be a good thing because one of the experiments turned out like this. →
This was the one Bethany and Courtney did. And this was not the one they
blew into with the straw (they did do that later), so I know it wasn't because of contaminated breath or anything (haha).
I emailed Apologia about this and sent pictures, and their reply was, "It's very hard to tell... It could be any number of things."
Well... it was pretty, though! =)
Then the kids had to blow out some CO
2 to get the cabbage juice to turn pink.
Well, soon they began to have too much fun, so I had to video!
They wanted to see who could blow the longest. =)
Winner by a mile: JohnDavid!
Teenagers are so fun! =)
We learned a lot more in this chapter, so I will just mention a few things.
We learned about the
macronutrients (not m
icro, but m
acro, because you need to eat a lot of these in order to live).
The macronutrients are
carbohydrates, fats, and
proteins.
Carbohydrates are
monosaccharides, disaccharides, or
polysaccharides. "Saccharides" are sugars, and
mono-, di-, and
poly- tell how many.
Macronutrients are burned by the body in the order I listed above: first carbs, then fats, then proteins.
Only when all the carbs are used up will fats be burned. That is why some people use a low-carb diet to lose weight. You do need some carbs, however.
We learned about the 20 amino acids that are in protein, and that your body only has a certain number of these naturally, and you must eat protein in order to get the rest of them! These are called the
8 essential amino acids.
All 8 of these amino acids are found in meat, so if you are a vegetarian, you will need to eat a wide variety of plants and seeds that contain different kinds of protein. Since our bodies cannot produce these amino acids themselves, we
must ingest them in order for the cells to be able to copy them. If you do not get enough amino acids, it could result in brain damage, and you might not be able to read my next post!
Please eat enough amino acids. Thank you. ;)
We learned that we are
endothermic (our body warmth comes from inside), and that certain animals like lizards, are
ectothermic (they are warmed from the outside by the sun).
We get our warmth from the food we eat. If we are in a cold environment, we will feel cold because we are warm-blooded. Just like if you put one hand in hot water for a few minutes, then put both hands in cold water, the hand that was in hot water will feel colder than your other hand.
Cold-blooded animals do not feel this; they just get sluggish and do not move around much. Their body temperatures will lower, and they are fine as long as it doesn't get
too cold.
We learned the difference between
basal metabolic rate (the
minimum energy a person's body needs every day just to survive) and
metabolic rate (the sum of your BMR and your activity level on a particular day).
Endothermic organisms have a higher BMR than ectothermic organisms, because endothermic organisms need to stay warm! So they need more food.
Do you think smaller animals or larger animals have a higher metabolic rate (not basal metabolic rate)?
Which needs to expend more energy to keep their internal body temperature the same?
Since smaller animals have a larger percentage of their body exposed to air, they lose heat more quickly than do larger animals. So smaller animals have a higher metabolic rate than large animals.
Every time I study science, I get amazed over and over at all the
complexity! And this is just a scratch on the surface! I am so
awed by how
intricately the Creator made it all, and wonder how can anyone believe in evolution.
It is so sad! I usually do not read comments on youtube, but occasionally if
Safety Mode is off, I do see them while scrolling to search for more videos on a topic. If there is any mention of Creation in a video, there are sure to be dozens of comments with name-calling and insults. There is nothing one can
write to these people that will get them to change their minds. They are set in their ways, and the fact that they are commenting shows they are argumentative, and I think some of them just like to argue!
The best thing is to pray for them, and that they'll meet someone they will respect, and begin to listen with their heart.
If you're reading this post, and have doubts, I'll be glad to
email with you.
sMiLeS,
