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By Pim, Mild, Jenny, Petch, Kat 11-01

Meal Worm Cellular Respiration Lab Report


Introduction
Background Information:
Cellular respiration is the process that cells obtain energy from the nutrient
molecules which are broken down by photosynthesis process for plants, and for animals the
nutrients molecules come from food. This process require oxygen, for animals, they have to
breath to get oxygen for the cellular respiration. This process happens in mitochondria. The
products of this process are carbon dioxide, water, and ATP. This process is the opposition
of photosynthesis. It requires oxygen which is from photosynthesis, it produces carbon
dioxide which photosynthesis requires.
In our experiment, we have two bottles, the first bottle contains meal worms and
worm food, the second bottle contains worm food and mung beans. We light up the incense
and put it into the two bottles. Oxygen makes the incense light up, so the bottle that oxygen
is used will light off the incense and the incense will still light in the bottle that oxygen is
still present.
Objective/Purpose:
The objective of our experiment is to prove that there is cellular respiration happen in
the bottle containing worms by observing the incense and the mist in each bottle in order
that we will be able to test for carbon dioxide and water which are the product of cellular
respiration, to prove that it is actually happening. Moreover, we have learnt about cellular
respiration in biology class therefore, this experiment is also set for understanding the
presence of cellular respiration in reality.
Hypothesis (Pim):
The fire on the incense that are being put inside the bottle will go out because the
worms are undergo cellular respiration which will increase the carbon dioxide rate in the
bottle and lower down oxygen rate in the bottle. The fire needs oxygen to continue burning
with low oxygen rate the fire will eventually go out. On the other hand, the incense inside the
bottle without the worm will stay on fire because there is no cellular respiration then this
bottle will contain low carbon dioxide rate compare to the bottle with the worms inside and
this provide a high suitable level of oxygen for the fire to keep burning.
Materials & Methods
Materials
-

Incenses
2 glass water bottle
2 small plastic water bottle
Clay dough
14 mealworms
worm food -> mung beans

Methods
1) Clean up both the small bottle and the big bottle
2) Dry up the bottle, make sure no extra water droplets are left in the bottles
3) Put the worms into the big water bottle
4) Add in worm food + 7 mung beans
5) Put the small plastic bottle on top of the big bottle facing downwards
6) Seal up the bottles with clay, tightly, making sure no gas can leak out.
7) Repeat steps 1-6 with another bottle, this time without the worms
8) Observe the two bottles and record the data
9) Leave the bottles over night
10) Observe and record any changes to the bottles

By Pim, Mild, Jenny, Petch, Kat 11-01


11) With one of the bottles, carefully unseal the water bottles
12) Take the small bottles out, making sure that the bottle is still facing downward
13) Light up the instance, making sure there is actual fire on it
14) Put the instance inside the water bottle
15) Record what happens inside the bottle and the instance
16) Repeat steps 11-15 with the other bottle
Results
With mealworm

Without meal worm

fire goes out


More water vapour

With worms

fire stays on
Less Water Vapour

Without Worms

By Pim, Mild, Jenny, Petch, Kat 11-01

Left: With worms

Right : Without worms

Discussion & Conclusion


Summary
In this lab, weve learnt that almost every organisms (especially eukaryotes)
requires cellular respiration to obtain the amount of energy it is needed to survive. Our
experiment was mainly designed to test the presence of CO2 in the bottle containing worms
inside, since CO2 is one of the products of cellular respiration. Weve also observe some
physical changes that have occurred inside the bottle, such as the amount of water
vapour(another product of cellular respiration). In addition, there are no noticeable errors
in our experiment, however, an improvement to this experiment would be the possibility
that we could make our results clearer, such as using a probe to test the amount of oxygen
and carbon dioxide in each of our bottle. This way we could have a recorded data of what
happened in our experiments, so the results are easier to be compare. A further experiment
that be conducted using the results from this experiment is comparing the rate of cellular
respiration in each species and determine how the amount of the energy used differs the
rate of cellular respiration in each organism.
Analysis
The results from this experiment shows that cellular respiration happens in worms,
due to the low level of Oxygen and high level of Carbon Dioxide in the bottle containing
worms inside. As a proof to this explanation, the low level of oxygen inside the bottle
containing worms causes the fire on the incense to go out, because oxygen is one of the
requirements that allows fire to occur. The amount of oxygen inside the bottle containing
worms have been used for cellular respiration and is instead being replaced by Carbon
Dioxide. Adding to this, there are a larger amount of water vapour in the bottle with worms
due to cellular respiration. Even though there are also water vapour present in the bottle
without the worms, but there is a high chance that this amount of water might comes from
transpiration (releasing of water) in the mung beans that have been put inside both of the
bottles as a controlling variable and not from cellular respiration. Therefore, we can
conclude that this experiment is a success in proving that cellular respiration happens

By Pim, Mild, Jenny, Petch, Kat 11-01


regularly in most organisms, or in this case, in worms.

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