Set the experiment in a well lighted place and observe for several days. Watch for bubbles or gas displacing the water in the tube. This lesson addresses Instructional Objectives 2.03 and 2.04. Have students write the answers to these questions. In this lesson we will see how energy is used, released, and stored as food passes through an ecosystem.
Energy moves through the ecosystem as consumers eat and as decomposers decay other organisms.
The energy stored in glucose may be released when organisms burn food in their cells during respiration . These energy releasing reactions usually occur in the cell mitochondria. Oxygen is combined with glucose forming water and carbon dioxide with the release of energy. This is just opposite of the photosynthesis reaction. The energy released by respiration is used to power the life processes of organisms including movement, growth, chemical synthesis, movement of materials in the organism, reproduction, and others.