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I'm looking over new standards that are entering my classroom and I do not understand respiration myself. I need help with this concept? Plants and animals go through respiration? What cellular structures primarily responsible for respirtation? I see these activities with Bromothymol Blue soulution and Elodea, what is this trying to explain--photosynthesis or respiration? Thank you for help explaining in terms my students and I will understand.

Hi Anne,

Cellular respiration does take place in both plant and animal cells. It primarily occurs in the mitochondria as sugar molecules are converted to chemical energy. This is, of course, an over-simplified explanation. I would highly recommend NSTA's science object on this, Cells and Chemical Reactions: Cellular Respiration. I believe it's the third of the cell science objects, so you might want to check out the others too.

Thanks!
Kendra

You may also want to view, Flow of Matter and Energy in Ecosystems: Carbon, Carbon Everywhere, understanding the carbon cycle is important to understanding cellular respiration and photosynthesis.

I just had to teach how some living organisms have to perform cellular respiration or photosynthesis and I came up with a short story for each process. As I read the story, my students were drawing and writing the steps for each process in their little windowpane boxes. As a class, we then compared and contrasted between the two. It really helped my students grasp the two concepts.