Sunday 25 June 2017

Hands on Science Sexto: Activity 7 - Carbohydrate vs. Sugar

This experiment uses yeast to look at how living things get energy from different foods.  Yeast generates gas through fermentation when it is consuming a food source and it does not need oxygen so it is possible to catch the gas generated using balloons.  Sugar is fast energy that does not last very long.  Carbohydrate is not so fast but it lasts for longer.  Bread, biscuits, crisps and different types of sugar are all interesting things to compare.  The quick version of the experiment only looks at how fast the balloons pop up but if you leave them longer and tape the balloons tight, you can look the next day to see how big they get.


This activity is connected to the Nutrition unit.  Talk about control experiments, here there are bottles that do not contain yeast and one does not contain food - to show the students that these ingredients are important and they have a reference to compare their positive results to.

Link to activity (pdf):  Carbohydrate vs. Sugar

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