Chloroplast Chaos

Photosynthesis

Grades 7-8

Plants use chloroplasts for photosynthesis.

• Collect data to produce data to serve as the basis for evidence to answer scientific questions or test design solutions under a range of conditions.

• Construct an explanation using models or representations.

• Construct a scientific explanation based on valid and reliable evidence obtained from sources (including the students' own experiments) and the assumption that theories and laws that describe the natural world operate today as they did in the past and will continue to do so in the future.

• Apply scientific ideas, principles, and/or evidence to construct, revise and/or use and explanation for real-world phenomena, examples, or events.

• Apply scientific reasoning to show why the data or evidence is adequate for the explanation or conclusion.

• Analyze and interpret data to provide evidence for phenomena.

• Students learn matter is conserved because atoms are conserved in physical and chemical processes. They also learn within a natural or designed system, the transfer of energy drives the motion and/or cycling of matter. Energy may take different forms (e.g. energy in fields, thermal energy, energy of motion). The transfer of energy can be tracked as energy flows through a designed or natural system.

• Plants use the energy from light to make sugars through photosynthesis. Within individual organisms, food is broken down through a series of chemical reactions that rearrange molecules and release energy.

• Sunlight is captured by plants and used in a reaction to produce sugar molecules, which can be reversed by burning those molecules to release energy.