Pīcekaen pemēh
High-hopes for Bioenergy and Sustainability
What are plants made of at the
atomic and molecular scale?
Resource adapted from Michigan State University’s Carbon Time instructional materials
Recall what you know about air by zooming in
to the molecular and atomic scale.
• What could we know about our food by zooming in on it?
• How do you suppose we could zoom in on food?
• Write down your ideas about these two questions.
This video Food Is Fuel can help us zoom in on food
to see what we can learn at the molecular scale
http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/nvsn6.sci.bio.fuel/food-is-fuel/
Learning more: What else can we know about
food at the molecular scale?
Without using a bomb
calorimeter, what are some
ideas you can think of for
another way of figuring out
what kind of molecules make
up a carrot, for example?
What are plants at the molecular scale?
One way to find out
what molecules make
up the plants we eat is
to read nutrition labels.
Fat, carbohydrate,
protein, vitamins, water
– these are all types of
molecules that make up
plants and other foods.
What are plants at the molecular scale?
We will use labels with a serving
size of 100 g.
This means that 1 g = 1% of the
materials in the food
Most of what makes up our food
are the molecules called fats,
proteins, and carbohydrates
(which includes sugars)
What are plants at the molecular scale?
Which of the organic molecules found in foods do you
predict that plants contain?
(fats, carbohydrates, proteins)
Peanut Butter
FATS in Peanut Butter
(Seeds)
How much fat is in 100
grams of peanut butter?
(Note: this peanut butter
has had no other
ingredients added other
than peanuts.)
What are FATS?
CARBOHYDRATES in Carrots
Carrots
(roots)
Total carbohydrate =
starch + sugar + fiber
How much starch is in
100 grams of carrots?
What are CARBOHYDRATES?
glucose molecule
PROTEINS in Carrots
Carrots
How much protein is in
100 grams of carrots?
What are PROTEINS?
Adding Up Materials in Plants
Organic materials in carrots
Fat: 0%
Carbohydrates: 10% (10g out of 100g)
Protein: 1%
Cholesterol and vitamins: less than 1%
Inorganic materials in carrots
Minerals (sodium, iron): less than 1%
What’s left?
WATER: about 89%
What patterns -- similarities and differences -- do you see in
these organic molecules?
How does the size of a carbon atom compare to a coffee bean or grain of rice?
Carbon atoms (atomic scale) form the backbone of all the
Zoom in, using the interactive zoom online: http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/cells/scale/
organic molecules (molecular scale) that
living organisms (macroscopic scale) are made of
What size do you picture a carbon atom?
Food provides the matter that living beings need to
build and repair their bodies
Matter comes from the organic
(carbon-based) molecules
Remember:
THE THREE FACTS ABOUT ATOMS
1. Atoms last forever (usually).
2. Atoms make up the mass of all materials.
3. Atoms are bonded to other atoms in molecules.
How do plants get the molecules that
their bodies are made of?
CARBOHYDRATES
FATS
PROTEINS
Food provides both matter and energy
Chemical energy in food
(measured using a bomb calorimeter)
Calories are a measure of the chemical
energy in food.
We burn food and measure the heat
energy that is given off in calories. That
heat energy comes from the highenergy bonds in organic molecules
Chemical Energy in Food:
C-C and C-H bonds are bonds that can
be broken to obtain chemical energy
CARBOHYDRATES
FATS
PROTEINS
Record 3 ideas in your POSOH Notebook
• How do you think the corn, beans, and squash
of the Three Sisters get the fat, carbohydrate,
and protein molecules that they are made of?
– Where do the atoms and molecules come from to
build these plants?
• How do you know?
– Where do atoms and molecules move as these
plants live and grow?
• How do you know?