Name: ______________________________________
Carbohydrate modeling activity
Purpose:
To discover the elements that make up carbohydrates, one of the important
biomolecules
To demonstrate how monosaccharides can be combined through dehydration
synthesis
To demonstrate how monosaccharides can be created through hydrolysis
PART A: Building a monosaccharide
1. Count your kit to make sure you have the correct number of the pieces necessary to create
glucose
a. ____ black pieces—represent carbon (can create 4 bonds)
b. ____ blue pieces—represent oxygen (can create 2 bonds)
c. ____ white pieces—represent hydrogen (can create one bond)
d. ____ tubes—represent the bonds themselves
2. Set up the basic ring structure first.
3. Add all of the other elements to the ring to complete your molecule of glucose.
4. Once your molecule is completed, have your teacher check for accuracy. Then s/he will initial
in the following space: ______________.
PART B: Dehydration Synthesis
***For this part, you will be combining your glucose molecule with the glucose molecule of
another nearby group***
5. Lay the glucose molecules down so they have the same orientation (layout) as the picture in
step 3
6. Remove the lone hydrogen from Carbon 1 on the left glucose molecule
7. Remove the bond and the OH group from Carbon 4 on the right glucose molecule
8. Reconnect the two glucose monomers
9. Make a water molecule out of the pieces that you removed
10. Your completed disaccharide, maltose, should look just like what you see below
11. Have your teacher check your maltose molecule for accuracy. S/he will then initial in the
following space: ______________
PART C: Hydrolysis
12. Split the water molecule up into an –OH and H. Add these pieces back to the molecules from
which you original took them. You will need to break up your disaccharide. Have your teacher
check this last step for accuracy. S/he will initial in the following space: _______
Questions
1. How many of the follow elements are in the original molecule of glucose?
a. Carbon _____
b. Hydrogen _____
c. Oxygen _____
2. What would be the chemical formula for glucose (reminder: the formula for water is H2O).
_________________________
3. What is the simplified ratio of hydrogen to oxygen in a molecule of glucose? _______
4. How does this ratio compare to the one you would find in water? _____________
5. Why do we call glucose a “monosaccharide”? _____________________________________________
6. Maltose was formed when we combined two monosaccharides together. What would be a
good term to describe maltose? ____________
7. Besides maltose, what was also produced when you joined the two monomers together?
__________
8. Why does the term “dehydration synthesis” make sense for what happened when you
combined the two glucose molecules to make maltose? ____________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
9. When you added the water back to the disaccharide, what happened to it? _______________
10. In science, we use the terms anabolic to describe a process that builds something up and
catabolic to describe a process that breaks something down.
a. Is hydrolysis catabolic or anabolic? _____________________
b. Is dehydration synthesis catabolic or anabolic? _______________
11. How many waters would I need to remove to join 5 monomers together? _________
12. How many waters would I need to add to split a 7-unit polymer? __________