Yeast Detective
These single-celled organisms are a type of fungus and can stay dormant until conditions are right.
What is yeast?
Plants use energy from this to make their own food.
What is the Sun / sunlight?
Animals cannot make their own food the way plants do, so they must do this.
What is eat / consume other organisms?
Plants get most of the material they need to grow from these two things.
What are air and water?
A substance an organism needs to live and grow is called a _____.
What is a nutrient?
Yeast needs water, warmth, and this food source to become active.
What is sugar?
Plants take in carbon dioxide from the air and this liquid through their roots to make food.
What is water?
This is the process that breaks food down into smaller pieces so animals can use the nutrients.
What is digestion?
Soil is important, but it mainly provides these (not the bulk of a plant’s mass).
What are minerals / nutrients?
Yeast, plants, and animals all need nutrients, but they get them in different ways. This is an example of different _____ within living systems.
What are nutrient systems / ways of obtaining nutrients?
When yeast is active, it produces bubbles of this gas that can make bread rise.
What is carbon dioxide (CO₂)?
The process by which plants use light, water, and carbon dioxide to make sugar (food) is called this.
What is photosynthesis?
The energy in the food animals eat originally came from this.
What is the Sun?
Plants take this gas in from the air through tiny openings in their leaves and use it to build plant material.
What is carbon dioxide (CO₂)?
When yeast “eats” sugar and produces carbon dioxide, or when a plant makes sugar from air and water, matter is being transformed. Energy is also involved. Name one place the energy ultimately comes from.
What is the Sun?
Yeast is neither a plant nor an animal. It belongs to this kingdom.
What is the fungus kingdom (or Fungi)?
In class investigations and the Mystery Science activity, students saw that plants can gain a lot of mass even when the amount of soil barely changes. What does this evidence tell us about where plants get most of the material they use to grow?
What is from air/carbon dioxide and water?
Organisms that make their own food are called producers. Organisms that eat other organisms are called these.
What are consumers?
What is stomata?
A friend says, “Plants eat soil to get bigger.” Use evidence from class investigations or the Mystery Science activity to respond.
What is (most mass comes from air and water; soil contributes only a small amount of minerals)?
In a class investigation, one bottle of yeast + water produced almost no bubbles while yeast + warm water + sugar produced many bubbles and inflated the balloon. What does this show about what yeast needs?
What is (warmth +) sugar / a food source?
Experiments (like the historical ones like van Helmont’s) show that plants gain most of their mass from these two sources, not from soil.
What are air (carbon dioxide) and water?
Explain how a rabbit and a hawk both ultimately get energy that started with the Sun.
What is (plants capture Sun energy → rabbit eats plants → hawk eats rabbit)?
Why can some plants grow without soil (for example in water with added minerals)?
What is (they get the bulk of their matter from air and water; soil mainly supplies small amounts of minerals)?
Make a claim supported by evidence: Plants get the materials they need for growth chiefly from air and water. Give one piece of classroom or investigation evidence.
Answers may vary (plants grew with little soil loss; plants grew in setups with air + water + light; data showing mass increase without much soil decrease; hydroponic-style thinking)