| |
The Incredible,
Edible Plant
Right-Click here to download this activity (Microsoft
word)
As you know, all organisms, (living
things), share certain characteristics of life. So, in many ways you are like a corn plant. You both
take in and use energy to
fuel all of your life processes. Both you and the
corn must have oxygen available to use the energy contained
in glucose, but your source of glucose is where you
differ. Humans and other animals require a source of
food to be ingested, hence the classification
heterotroph. Food, then, is a supply of both the
energy needed to maintain life and also the carbon
necessary for building new cells. Some foods are also
sources of water and other minerals for animals.
Conversely, corn and other plants need not ingest a food
source because they are capable of using the sun’s energy
to manufacture their own food. Using carbon from the
air around them,
and water and minerals taken from the ground, they can
produce sugars, like glucose, that are either used for food or
incorporated into body tissue. We call these organisms
autotrophs.
So, both autotrophs and heterotrophs have the same needs;
they just have different ways of meeting those needs.
Plants get carbon from the air in the form of carbon
dioxide and they get energy from food they manufacture
using the sun's energy. Animals, including humans,
get both energy and carbon from the plants or animals they
eat.
|
|
| |
All living
things also reproduce so that the
species can continue. There are many different ways in
which this occurs, but all organisms must have a way to supply
the same essential ingredients for life: water, energy,
oxygen, carbon and minerals to an offspring so it can grow
and develop. Humans and other mammals accomplish this by
housing the egg in a controlled, nurturing environment
where the placenta delivers everything the growing embryo
needs. What about corn and other seed producing
species of plants? How do they reproduce and how do the
parents ensure an energy source for the developing
offspring? Read the
appropriate chapter in your textbook to find out about
plant reproduction. |
|
