Lab Report On Cellular Fermentation

Functionality wise, it is easy to understand cellular respiration and fermentation. However in terms of the process, it can be difficult to understand, due to the many steps involved in a single phase. Some students hypothesized that if a human contracts their forearm muscles repetitively, then the muscles will be fatigued. But if yeast is awoken from its dormant state, the balloon’s circumference and weight will increase, the pH will decrease, and the process of cellular respiration will be replaced by fermentation. Parts of the hypothesis were supported while others parts were disproved. The balloons’ circumferences, cellular respiration being replaced by fermentation, and forearm muscle fatigue were supported by the data. However,
This result makes no logical sense because the student’s lab manual says that “Yeast will produce CO2… the CO2 will produce bubbles and cause the pH to become more acidic over time.” What has most likely happened is a big human error. Some part of the experiment must not have been performed properly or the data recorded was extremely inaccurate. The pH should decrease because when CO2 is added to water, carbonic acid is formed, which will either release hydrogen ions directly or indirectly by converting to bicarbonate and then carbonate. The other surprising thing was that for the balloon procedure, the weight decreased. Balloon’s A to C decreased by 0.2 grams over the half hour time period, while balloon D decreased during the first 15 minutes like the other balloons did. However for the last 15 minutes the weight increased to 39.6 grams. A possible explanation for this phenomenon is that over time, the alcoholic fermentation of the yeast got weaker and weaker. This weakness in alcoholic fermentation likely decreased the amount of CO2 produced, which then decreased the balloons’
By Wake Tech’s biology students discovering these two phenomenons, science will not move forward. Science will most likely stay the same. For the pH data inconsistency, that was most probably a very big human error. This lab manual has already said that the pH of the aqueous yeast solution should decrease with time. Upon It research into the balloon weight inconsistency, it is likely that Boyle's law is being observed. It states that a volume of a mass of gas is inversely related to the pressure. We can see this happening because the circumference increase of the balloon indicates that balloons volume is increasing. The increased surface area on the balloon decreases the balloons pressure due to the pressure formula in physics pressure=force/area. For Boyle's law to work, mass has to be constant. In the real world, mass is likely not able to be controlled as precise as 0.1 grams due to human error, other variables, and the equipment used. Meaning that the slight decrease in weight observed is likely insignificant for Boyle’s law being inapplicable. Therefore, Boyle’s Law is likely to be occurring during the balloon procedure of this