Virginia SOL LS.4.b
The Standard
photosynthesis and cellular respiration support life processes.
Virginia Standards of Learning for Science · The student will investigate and understand that there are chemical processes of energy transfer which are important for life. Key ideas include
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students explain how plants use light energy to make glucose, and how cells release usable energy from glucose. They connect the inputs and outputs of both processes and track matter and energy through organisms.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Students can label both processes in a diagram, including glucose, oxygen, carbon dioxide, water, and energy. They can predict what happens when light, glucose, or oxygen is limited.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may think plants get food from soil, plants do not perform cellular respiration, or respiration means only breathing. They may also say energy cycles, rather than recognizing that matter cycles while energy flows.
How to Assess It
- Give students an unlabeled plant and animal cell diagram. Ask them to add arrows showing where glucose, oxygen, carbon dioxide, water, and energy move.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Place bicarbonate-infiltrated spinach leaf disks under a lamp and in darkness, then record when each disk floats.
Ask students to trace one carbon atom and energy from sunlight, through a plant, and into an animal cell.
Give groups molecule and organelle cards to sort into photosynthesis, cellular respiration, both, or neither.
Have students measure breathing rates before and after two minutes of stepping, then explain the change using oxygen and glucose demand.
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Printable LS.4.b Worksheet
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Related Standards
- LS.3.a
patterns of cellular organization support life processes;
- LS.2.c
similarities and differences between plant and animal cells determine how they support life processes;
- LS.2.e
cellular transport (osmosis and diffusion) is important for life processes.
- LS.2.b
cell structure and organelles support life processes;
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