OpenSciEd Unit 7.4 · Lesson 11 · 11.B
Look for: Photosynthesis is how plant cells produce fuel
From Teacher Edition
Facilitation guidance from the lesson plan — what to notice in student thinking and how to respond while teaching.
Building towards
11.B Obtain and evaluate information from scientific texts to clarify the claim that the plant system doesn’t die when it can’t do photosynthesis because the sugars it produced can be stored for later use in the form of starches. The stored food molecules can be used for energy via cellular respiration or for growth.
What to look / listen for
See Key
Annotations for How do plant (and animal) cells use food? for suggested annotation. Big ideas that should be noted are:
- Photosynthesis is how plant cells produce fuel.
- Cellular respiration is how those cells use that fuel for energy to do things.
- Cellular respiration happens inside specialized structures found within plant and animal cells, called mitochondria.
- Plants typically store their extra food as starches, though in some cases, like in their seeds, they store some of it as fats too.
- When needed for energy, plants can tap their stored food reserves by converting them back into sugar that reacts with oxygen in cellular respiration. Plants can also use those stored food molecules for building blocks to grow.
What to do
If students didn’t note this information from the reading, it may be a good idea to spend more time doing another pass with the close reading strategies including giving pairs of students time to discuss the reading.