In this experiment we're going to look at life in action and investigate some of the
ingredients that make life work.
Now most organisms need air
to breathe and some kind of energy source
to live.
And by energy, we usually mean food.
But in order to thrive and multiply, conditions
need to be just right. And that's what we're going to investigate.
We're going to use a very simple form of life.
This is baker's yeast, and it's alive.
It's a tiny single celled kind of a fungus. And
given food and air, it will grow and multiply.
But we're going to see which kind of conditions it likes best.
And to do that, I'm going to
make up a series of sugar solutions.
Before you start,
print off the glass diagram from your study journal so
that you can record which sugar solution is which.
I've got four glasses each with a spoonful
of sugar in, and I'm going to add the same
amount of water to each.
So this first one, I'm going to add cold water.
In the next one, I'm going to put in the same
amount of just boiled water from the kettle, but be
careful you don't crack the glass.
In the final two, I'm going to put the same amount
of water that's
at body temperature or blood temperature.
So I've just tested that with my finger.
Now give them a quick stir.
Cold water.
Boiling water.
Blood warm, and blood warm.
So now I'm going to add a sachet of yeast to each glass.
Then I'm going to mark off the level of
the water on the side of the glass.
Now this last glass, I'm going to cover with cling
film to restrict the amount of air
that the yeast has to work with.
Set your experiment up in the same way, so
we can compare results.
I'm going to give this five minutes and see if anything's happened.
Well that's five minutes up and the yeast
is clearly sprung into action because it started to produce
a foam. This foam is the result of the yeast using the oxygen in the air to digest the
sugar. It's producing a gas as a waste or byproduct.
In this particular case, it's carbon dioxide.
And that's the process that makes bread rise
in the same way as its doming and making the cling
film rise here. Now to monitor the experiment - and
keep track of the process - I'm going to measure the thickness of the foam and record how it changes over time.
So this one is 2 centimetres thick
after five minutes.
And this one is
2 centimetres thick.
I'll give that another five minutes, and then I'll come back and make another measurement.
Well that's 10 minutes up, and this one - which was the boiling water
- doesn't seem to be doing very much at all.
This one - which was the cold water - appears to be just starting to
produce a very thin layer of foam.
And these two are
still doing really well, and producing more
foam.
I'm just going to measure the thickness again.
This foam has gone up to 6 centimetres.
And this one is 5 centimetres.
Now to find out what these observations mean and to interpret the results,
you'll need to join in with the online discussion.
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