Friday, March 26, 2004
Ok, about class the other day. You know, on Wednesday, the one I was going to teach and then tell you about my teaching methods. What? You don't remember? What the hell? I thought that you lived, breathed and worshiped my blog. Well, you really should start. It is that good. I mean it. Anyway, I did promise to tell you about my class and I am not one to break promised or to forget, so here it is.
In class, we were talking about Metabolism. You know, the process of creating energy and using energy in your body. So, part of making the energy involves converting energy to more usable forms. Glucose, aka sugar, is not a good usable form of energy. It just contains way to much. It is like that thousand dollar bill you promised to give me but then didn't. I mean, it exists, but how practical it is that you are going to actually use it? So, glucose needs to be broken down and the energy needs to be harvested. So, that was what I was talking about. I hope that you are still following, because here is where it get a bit more tricky. Part of that transfer of energy involves the "Electron Transport Chain." This is a chain of proteins that receive electrons and them pass them on to their neighbors (in a unidirectional fashion). In the process of this giving and receiving, energy is created in the form of a Hydrogen Ion gradient. Well, this is where students always get lost, and I am sure that you are lost right now too. So here is what we are going to do.
Stop and go buy yourself a pack of M&Ms. What? You don't like M&M's? Ok, then get skittles. Or popcorn. Just what ever you want, as long as there are a lot of them. Steaks? Well, I guess so, but you really do need a lot of them. Ok. Now pretend that you are a protein in the electron transport chain and that your M&M's or steak is Hydrogen Ions. Ok, I just gave you an electron (which is energy remember?). Now what do you do? Did you forget already? Ok, you are going to pump a hydrogen ion (represented by your candy) through a membrane. So pretend that you do this 50 times. Now you have all the hydrogen ion on one side and not on the other. This is also energy, because the hydrogen ions want to be everywhere in equal concentrations, not all bunched up. And this movement of Hydrogen ions back across the membrane is what makes ATP (and these are the $20 bills of the cell) Ok. Now you can eat the M&Ms. I think that is the part my students liked the best. Not the actual learning (we will see on the next quiz if they actually learned) but the eating of the M&M's. But at least, I am going to pretend that they learned. And that you learned too.
And if this whole thing bored the hell out of you, well, who cares? Not me. I mean, I did not ask you to keep reading anyway. And if you want more information about the whole thing, check this out.
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In class, we were talking about Metabolism. You know, the process of creating energy and using energy in your body. So, part of making the energy involves converting energy to more usable forms. Glucose, aka sugar, is not a good usable form of energy. It just contains way to much. It is like that thousand dollar bill you promised to give me but then didn't. I mean, it exists, but how practical it is that you are going to actually use it? So, glucose needs to be broken down and the energy needs to be harvested. So, that was what I was talking about. I hope that you are still following, because here is where it get a bit more tricky. Part of that transfer of energy involves the "Electron Transport Chain." This is a chain of proteins that receive electrons and them pass them on to their neighbors (in a unidirectional fashion). In the process of this giving and receiving, energy is created in the form of a Hydrogen Ion gradient. Well, this is where students always get lost, and I am sure that you are lost right now too. So here is what we are going to do.
Stop and go buy yourself a pack of M&Ms. What? You don't like M&M's? Ok, then get skittles. Or popcorn. Just what ever you want, as long as there are a lot of them. Steaks? Well, I guess so, but you really do need a lot of them. Ok. Now pretend that you are a protein in the electron transport chain and that your M&M's or steak is Hydrogen Ions. Ok, I just gave you an electron (which is energy remember?). Now what do you do? Did you forget already? Ok, you are going to pump a hydrogen ion (represented by your candy) through a membrane. So pretend that you do this 50 times. Now you have all the hydrogen ion on one side and not on the other. This is also energy, because the hydrogen ions want to be everywhere in equal concentrations, not all bunched up. And this movement of Hydrogen ions back across the membrane is what makes ATP (and these are the $20 bills of the cell) Ok. Now you can eat the M&Ms. I think that is the part my students liked the best. Not the actual learning (we will see on the next quiz if they actually learned) but the eating of the M&M's. But at least, I am going to pretend that they learned. And that you learned too.
And if this whole thing bored the hell out of you, well, who cares? Not me. I mean, I did not ask you to keep reading anyway. And if you want more information about the whole thing, check this out.
0 comments
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