On December 13, 2020, volunteers from the Irvine branch of AYLUS hosted its final fourteenth science exploratory class for the fall session. We used Zoom to host the lesson, and students, consisting of elementary and middle schoolers, had a great time participating.
We started by talking about the basics of photosynthesis and why it is important. We talked about how plants use the energy of sunlight to make food, and how other organisms eat plants to get their energy. We then talked about the types of lights plants use to photosynthesize, the pigments they use, and why they look green. We then showed them the basic equation of how photosynthesis occurs and showed them a brief picture of a chloroplast. We then drew and in-depth and step-by-step diagram of a chloroplast and how each step of photosynthesis works. We showed them the light-dependent reactions, how water is split, and how sunlight photons excite the electrons into the electron transport chain, to pump H+ ions to make ATP and NADPH. We then showed them step-by-step how CO2 and other molecules merge combine and rearrange their carbons in the Calvin Cycle, and how 1G3P is exported for each cycle. We summarized but had some time left over so we briefly went over cellular respiration. We did the same diagram method, but much faster and a bit simplified.
Volunteers: Andy Chen (1.5 hrs), Brian Song (1 hr)