Secondary Science- Nutrition

Nutrition:

Food has many meanings every day and scientific

Needed to stay alive but unaware of respiration tie-in but revert back

Dietary Components* Eating = growth, health, strength, and energy

From drinking just water to gain weight to fat vs strong and they know good vs bad diet foods but not why (5-11)
Adults knew names of components but not function
Food = growth, not energy
Plants get vitamins from soil
Misconception between cells vs molecules and some thought molecules were cells
Living things = cells but not molecules like those studied in phys and chem.

0-9yrs = hollow skin bag all stomach, food blood and wastes are present: stomach larger and lower, and intestines but not liver and double outlet
Yr 11 fairly correct version of anatomy and overall functions of systems
Food broken down, juices or acid dissolves and ‘goodness extracted’
Common idea: digestion is process which releases usable energy from food.
Sequence of digestion confused
Breaking down, releasing energy, and then swallowing
58% enzymes are made of cells
Defecation necessary make room for more food.

Need to understand C (solid in pure form) is present in CO2 gas and that is converted by a green plant into sugar (a solid, but in soln) when H (g) and H2O (l) us added using light energy which is consequently to chem. E
Most students don’t understand what prereq concepts req for understanding photosynth
Counterintuitive process (photosyn) – plants suck up food from soil
Plants get food from soil and roots are for feeding (growth = food coming in)
Plants take in organic materials (starch, sugars, protein) from soil
Water absorbed from soil and essent for growth assume main component of growth
CO2, H2O and minerals = food for plants: assumed to contain and supply E
14yrs thought CO2 absorbed in roots
CO2 and H2O support drinking and breathing and remain unchanged

Thought of a substance rather than process or plants respiration
Think food aquired by plants accumulates as it grows
Little understanding food provide E for plant’s processes
Photosynthesis is food making process in 13 yr olds
Plants do photo for benefit of people and animals and not for themselves
Disbelief in increase of mass due to incorporation of gas (which has no mass to them)
Chlorophyll is a food substance, protection, storage product, vital like blood, attracts sun
Sunlight = reagent, need for germination
Most not understand energy transfer and use heat and light interchangeably

Difficult to understand photo vs cell respiration
O2 = air and air not used by plants
Plant breathing –animal breathing model age 9
2/3 O2 required for plant respire (15 yr old), most not know that CO2 required, and must occur in light
Not understand increased photosynth reduce CO2 in closed system
Also misconcep: water plants absorb CO2 at night, leaves produce high CO2 level

Ecological perspective not evident with feeding and energy
Most think plants for benefit of animals and humans
Know animals can’t live w/o plants bc of their O2 need
Stronger organisms considered to have more E
E adding up thru ecosystem instead of depleting
Lack of conservation of matter understanding (food eaten incorporated into body seen as something different and not recognized as material which is food of next level.