Essay on unit 3 note taking template

• What is the purpose of Cellular Respiration? What are the major stages in the Cellular Respiration Pathway? Where in the cell do the reactions occur? What major events occur in each stage?

What roles do sun, plant, water, carbon dioxide, energy, oxygen, and sugar play in the process of photosynthesis?

The Cellular respiration and photosynthesis form a critical cycle of energy and matter that supports the continued existence of life on earth. Describe the stages of cellular respiration and photosynthesis and their interaction and interdependence including raw materials, products, and amount of ATP or glucose produced during each phase. How is each linked to specific organelles within the eukaryotic cell? What has been the importance and significance of these processes and their cyclic interaction to the evolution and diversity of life?

The Carbon Cycle is the series of processes by which carbon compounds are interconverted in the environment, chiefly involving the incorporation of carbon dioxide into living tissue by photosynthesis and its return to the atmosphere through respiration, the decay of dead organisms, and the burning of fossil fuels.

The carbon cycle has been significantly altered by extracting and combusting billions of tons of hydrocarbons in fossils that were buried deep in the Earth's crust. In addition, clearing vegetation that stores carbon has also impacted the carbon cycle. Global release of carbon through human activities has increased from 1 billion tons per year in 1940 to 6.5 billion tons per year in 2000. About half of this extra carbon is taken up by plants and the oceans, while the other half remains in the atmosphere.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) absorbs energy from the sun, then releases it back into earth; it is the second largest greenhouse gas after water vapour. Carbon dioxide releases out a harmful gas, which is dissolved out to the atmosphere determined by temperature. However CO2 is not one of the main impulsive forces in causing climate shifts, but as the climate cools the concentration of CO2 decreases this then has a further cooling effect. Causing this irregular rise and fall in CO2 levels is the shift where carbon moves between the atmosphere, the earths crust and the ocean. Furthermore, the rapid change of seasons also has an effect in how CO2 levels act, as such in winter the saturation levels in the ocean increases. This then influences the CO2 levels to dissolve in the ocean, resulting to a rise in sea levels and causes such as loss of biodiversity.

3.5: Describe how energy from the sun flows through an ecosystem by way of food chains and food webs and how only a small portion of that energy is used by individual organisms while the majority is lost as heat.

5.The homosphere is a vast reservoir of relatively inert nitrogen, originating principally from volcanic sources.Nitrogen is a key element of life, yet we exhale all the nitrogen we inhale.The explanation for this contradiction is that nitrogen integrates into our bodies not from the air we breathe but through compounds in food.In the soil, nitrogen is bound to these compounds by nitrogen-fixing bacteria, and it returns to the atmosphere by denitrifying bacteria that remove nitrogen from organic materials.The other main constituent gases are Oxygen, Argon and Carbon dioxide.Although it forms about one fifth of the atmosphere, oxygen forms compounds that forms half of Earth’s crust

Carbon plus energy from the sun are the fundamentals for life on earth. How carbon moves between the atmosphere and oceans and on land among the plants, animals and microbes is the unique combination of physics and biology; elegant in its simplicity of principle and fascinating in its complexity in nature.

To become biologically available, inert nitrogen gas (N2) must become “fixed,” or combined with hydrogen in nature to form ammonium ions (NH4), which are chemically and biologically active and can be taken up by plants. However, once nitrogen undergoes the right kind of chemical change, it becomes available to the organisms that need it and can then act as a potent fertilizer.

The four cycles important to ecosystem are water, carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorous. The Water cycle describes the movement of water on Earth through evaporation, transpiration, condensation and precipitation. Carbon cycle is crucial for all organic living organisms. Carbon is produced by combustion of wood and burning of fossil fuels, which plants then take in; animals eat plants and exhale carbon dioxide, which is one-way carbon, is placed in the atmosphere. An additional source of carbon is the ocean floor absorbs carbon sediments and when they move a volcanic eruption occurs and releases carbon dioxide gas during an eruption as well as decomposition of plant and animals, which return carbon to sediments. After millions of years, these sediments create fossil fuel or oil which when burnt returns carbon to the atmosphere. Carbon is truly a co-dependent cycle. Photosynthesis removes carbon from the atmosphere and exhaling returns it to the atmosphere. Nitrogen cycle is a natural process where nitrogen passes through air to soil to organisms through a process of nitrogen fixation and denitrification. Nitrogen is important, as it is useful in the production of amino acids, protein, and nucleic acids. It is the most abundant. Phosphate is essential to cell membranes, human bones, teeth, and plant life. Phosphorous is minimally in the atmosphere as dust particles .Plants absorb phosphate thru the soil animals eat the plants and via decomposition or waste phosphate is

Nitrogen is a nutrient found in all living things on earth. It can be in the form of a gas or found in our soil and water sources. Like nitrogen, phosphorus serves as nourishment found in soil and our water systems and any residue that may occur from these sources. Both Nitrogen and phosphorus are reintroduced into the ecosystem through decomposition and transfers back into the earth.

Carbon is an important element found in all living organisms and also in many non-living organisms. Because there is a finite amount of carbon, and many living and non living matter that requires the element, the carbon goes through the carbon cycle so that it can be used repeatedly. The carbon cycle is the process in which the element carbon, in its many different forms, travels through the atmosphere, biosphere, geosphere and the ocean. This is done through the addition, removal and storage of carbon in these four locations through many processes such as respiration and decomposition of living organisms, burning of fossil fuels, dissolving and photosynthesis. All parts of the carbon cycle, addition, storage and removal, are linked together and are needed to complete the cycle.

Photosynthesis use the light energy from the sun to power a chemical process that builds organic molecules which is turned into various products we use like food, clothes, paper that’s just name a few. There similarity between photosynthesis and cellular respiration both use carbon dioxide which is a gas that passes from the air to the plants and water. Which is then absorbed from the soil by the plant roots. Chloroplasts are organelles in a plant cell and eukaryotic that conduct photosynthesis. Chloroplasts uses light energy to convert atoms into sugar to form glucose. The chemical process cellular respiration stores energy which converts to sugar in the molecules. Cell respiration is the process that release energy by breaking down food molecules in three stages. Three stages of cell respiration are glycolysis,

The air that we breathe is a mix of gases that encircles the Earth’s crust. Those gases known as nitrogen and oxygen are the two gases that makes up twenty-one percent of the atmosphere, and are known as permanent gases. When that gas go through some type of contraction, it is known to be carbon dioxide and water vapor, and that’s what assist the “cycle and growth of plants, photosynthesis overall, and burning of fossils fuels”(Harris, ).