Florida SC.8.L.18.2

Science8th GradeMatter and Energy Transformations

The Standard

Describe and investigate how cellular respiration breaks down food to provide energy and releases carbon dioxide.

Florida Next Generation Sunshine State Standards for Science

Teacher's field guide

What Students Need to Do: Students explain how cells use food molecules to release usable energy. They use evidence from an investigation to connect food use with carbon dioxide production.
What Mastery Looks Like: Students can identify food as the stored energy source and carbon dioxide as a product. They can interpret observations, such as an inflating balloon in a yeast setup, as evidence of cellular respiration.
Common Misconceptions: Students may think breathing and cellular respiration are the same process, or that cells create energy from nothing. They may also think only animals carry out cellular respiration and that carbon dioxide comes directly from food without a cell process.
How to Assess It: Give students a diagram of yeast, sugar solution, and an inflated balloon. Ask them to explain what caused the balloon to inflate and what it shows about energy use in cells.

Lesson moves

Mix yeast, warm water, and sugar in a bottle, attach a balloon, and compare gas production with a no-sugar control.
Ask students to write why a runner breathes faster after a sprint, using the terms cells, food, energy, and carbon dioxide.
Have teams sort cards labeled glucose, oxygen, energy, carbon dioxide, and water into inputs and outputs, then explain their choices.
Compare food labels and predict which snack provides more stored energy for cells, then discuss why eating food alone does not release it.

Free download

A ready-to-print activity worksheet aligned to SC.8.L.18.2, with an answer key for the teacher on its own page. No account needed.

PDF, US Letter, prints cleanly in black and white.

Keep exploring

Grade, subject, topic, and the complete standard are prefilled. Create one free, no account needed.