By Paige, Stacie, Amelia.
Objectives
Learning about Conservation of energy
Learning about transformation of energy
Conservation – Preserving a substance.
Metabolism
Metabolism is a process in which you break down foods into calories and these are combined with oxygen to release the energy that your body needs in order to function/live.
This is a very complicated bio-chemical process.
Metabolism is essential for the energy for these functions:
Breathing
Circulating blood
Adjusting hormone levels
Growing and repairing cells
Digestive system/food processing
Physical Activity
Everyone has a different metabolic rate. It all depends on the number of calories that your body uses. These factors determine this:
Your body size and composition
Your sex
Your age
Reference - http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/weight-loss/in-depth/metabolism/art20046508
Conservation of energy
Energy is constant. Energy is neither created nor destroyed.
We change it from one energy into another.
An example of this is Kinetic energy.
Transforming of energy
Transformation of energy starts with the digestive system. The digestive system is essential for metabolism to take place. The digestive system breaks down complicated food particles into molecules (Catabolism) like this:
Fat breaks down into Fatty acids by using an enzyme called Lipase.
Protein breaks down into Amino Acids by an enzyme called protease.
Starch breaks down into sugars by using an enzyme called amylase.
These enzymes are produced by hormones. The hormones are activated when you eat.
Once we have broken these down, we can then build them back up again into a collection of molecules (Anabolism) so we can digestive them and use them in our cells to make energy.
This is all controlled by hormones.
Catabolism – Cutting down particles into molecules
Anabolism – Building molecules up again.
In order to do this transformation you need energy