Cellular Respiration Lab Report

Understanding the function of cellular respiration and fermentation is easy to learn. However it is more difficult to learn the process of glucose being converted into energy. Cellular respiration has four stages, of which a phase can consist of eight or ten steps. In the Krebs Cycle alone, there are ten steps, where the input of Acetyl CoA is eventually reconverted back into oxaloacetate. Fermentation is also no different. It can be difficult for students to understand what the role of NADH is in the fermentation process. For these reasons, the unit 9 lab was created. It allows students to learn how organism create energy for usage in the body.
Cellular Respiration is a process where chemical energy in glucose is converted into usable energy for organisms. The chemical equation looks like this:
Every phase except pyruvate oxidation makes ATP. Glycolysis happens in the cell cytoplasm. Other than that phase, cellular respiration mostly takes place in the cell’s mitochondria. Glycolysis also happens to be the only phase where oxygen is not required for it to occur. This is why glycolysis and fermentation are very similar to one another. Fermentation is producing energy for organism usage without the presence of oxygen. This happens when an organism's body can not take in more oxygen. As a result, the efficient process of cellular respiration switches over to lactic acid or alcoholic fermentation, depending on the organism. Human beings use lactic acid fermentation, while yeast use alcoholic. Yeast is commonly used in baking bread. It is an interesting organism in that they are called facultative anaerobes. This means that they respire or ferment based on the environmental conditions they are