Mississippi Science BIO.2.2
The Standard
- BIO.2
- Students will explain that cells transform energy through the processes of photosynthesis and cellular respiration to drive cellular functions.
Develop models of the major reactants and products of photosynthesis to demonstrate the transformation of light energy into stored chemical energy in cells. Emphasize the chemical processes in which bonds are broken, and energy is released, and new bonds are formed, and energy is stored.
2026 Mississippi College- and Career-Readiness Standards for Science · Energy Transfer
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students model how carbon dioxide and water become sugar and oxygen. They track the atoms as bonds change and show that light supplies the energy stored in sugar.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student accounts for every carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atom in a balanced model. They mark bonds broken and formed, then explain why making sugar needs light.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may think sunlight becomes part of the sugar molecule or that the released oxygen comes from carbon dioxide. Some think breaking a bond releases energy on its own, but breaking bonds requires energy.
How to Assess It
- Exit ticket: Sketch molecules before and after photosynthesis, accounting for every atom. Mark a broken bond, a new bond, where light enters, and where energy is stored.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs colored beads and toothpicks to build six carbon dioxide and six water molecules, then rearrange them into glucose and six oxygen molecules.
Ask students to write: If breaking bonds takes energy, why does a plant need sunlight to make sugar?
Give groups molecule cards and have them race to arrange balanced inputs and outputs, then label the energy source and stored energy.
Show a tomato plant under a grow light; have students trace light entering leaves and chemical energy reaching the fruit as sugar.
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Printable BIO.2.2 Worksheet
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Related Standards
- BIO.2
Students will explain that cells transform energy through the processes of photosynthesis and cellular respiration to drive cellular functions.
- P.7.5D.4
Build a model to explain that chemical reactions can store (formation of bonds) or release energy (breaking of bonds).
- L.5.3A.1
Research and communicate the basic process of photosynthesis that is used by plants to convert light energy into chemical energy that can be stored and released...
- BIO.2.3
Develop models of the major reactants and products of cellular respiration (aerobic and anaerobic) to demonstrate the transformation of the chemical energy stor...
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