This is a story I had to write about the relationship between respiration and photosynthesis. I doubt anyone will read it, but I figured, Hey! What the heck. This is the exact version I turned in to my teacher, minus the A/N.
Angel: what about the TMI in the place for your name?
My name is TMI!
Gazzy: sure…
Enjoy! Or don't. It doesn't really matter, since it was a homework assignment…
TMI
10/6/10 2nd Period
Photosynthesis and Respiration
A sharp pain on his temple brought Fang out of his doze. He opened his eyes to Max standing over him with her hand raised to slap him again. "Wha' happun?" he slurred his words sleepily. A river of giggles woke him up further, and he was jolted even more awake by Max's death glare directed at him. She could be very frightening at times. "Fang! Listen to Teacher Max, or Kick-Butt Max will come out and kick your butt into next week! No more falling asleep while I'm working so hard to educate you poor, unlearned kids!" Max ended her tirade with another glare at me before turning back to her younger students, Gazzy, Angel and Nudge.
"Nice going Fnick," Iggy murmured out of the corner of his grinning mouth. Fang shoved him, and Iggy yelped slightly. "Hey! No shoving the blind kid!"
"Whatever," Fang shot back. The brothers quieted down again as Max came back over.
"Gazzy and Nudge are working on their multiplication tables and Angel is writing her essay on Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, so now I get to focus on you lucky little boys!" Max clapped her hands. Iggy and Fang just stared at her, and she frowned. "Hey, I might be the same age as you two, but I am the more educated one! So listen up, or get beaten up." Fang and Iggy sat at attention at her last words. She giggled at the expressions on their faces before plopping herself down next to them and heaving a heavy textbook onto the table. "Today we are learning some of the finer points of Life Science!" Max waited for their reactions, but received none, except for another round of blank stares.
"Max," Iggy sighed. "We know about the birds and the bees already. We're fifteen!" Max punched his arm. "Ouch! What did I say about picking on the blind kid?" he complained, rubbing the injured appendage.
"Life science is not only the birds and the bees, Ig," Max almost growled at him. "Stop being such a sick-o. What we are learning about today is photosynthesis-"
"Wait, I know about this!" Fang interrupted Max, ignoring her glare. "It was on Spongebob, I think."
"Yes Fang, sponges do use photosynthesis," Max explained with the air of patiently telling a young child he was not Superman. "Do you actually know what photosynthesis is?"
"Umm, no," Fang admitted, slumping back in his seat. Iggy grinned with a superior air.
"I know what photosynthesis is!" he bragged. "It's the way plants use sunlight to make food!"
"Wow Iggy, how did you know that?" Max asked, impressed.
"I got bored one day, and asked Gazzy to read the dictionary out loud to me. I remember photosynthesis the most because I kept trying to guess how it was spelled," Iggy explained. Fang and Max looked slightly weirded out.
"You got Gazzy to read you the dictionary all the way to the letter 'p'?" Fang asked skeptically. Iggy nodded energetically. "Weird." Iggy stuck his tongue out at Fang. "Wow, that was really mature Iggy! Max, Iggy is being rude!" Fang complained.
"Suck it up Fang," she instructed him. "Iggy, stop acting like a six-year-old. Ok, I highly doubt that either of you know the answer to this, but I'm going to ask anyway. Do you know what an organism that uses photosynthesis to make its own food is called?" Both boys stared at her blankly. "Wow, I'm getting déjà vu," Max teased them.
"Oh shut up," Fang muttered. "You already read the textbook and we haven't."
"Whatever. Anyway, that type of organism is called an autotroph," Max informed the brothers.
"You mean that pretty much every plant is an autotroph?" Iggy clarified.
"Almost all of them. There are a few exceptions, such as the Venus flytrap. Do you know what a Venus flytrap, an organism that can't make its own food, but gets it from another organism, is called?" Max asked.
"Why do you bother asking us by now? You know that we don't know!" Fang pointed out. "You're making me feel dumb."
"Have you ever thought that maybe there's a reason you feel dumb?" Iggy asked. Fang scowled at him, but refrained from physically harming Iggy.
"Guys, jeez! Be quiet so I can teach you! An organism that can't make its own food, but eats another organism to gain energy, is called a heterotroph. Autotrophs use photosynthesis to create food for themselves, and heterotrophs eat autotrophs or other heterotrophs to gain energy," Max restated for them, and let it settle in their heads.
"I'm hungry now," Iggy complained. Fang punched him again. "Ow! Stop that!"
"Stop talking while Max is!" Fang retorted.
"Thanks Fang." Max smiled at him, and Fang grinned back. Iggy sat and rubbed his arm, muttering incoherently. "Ok then, so do you know how organisms get the energy out of the food they get?" Both brothers shook their heads. "Through a process called respiration, single cells will break down the food to receive the energy stored inside them."
"Oh, okay, I think I get it," Fang said slowly. "Autotrophs get food through photosynthesis, then get energy by breaking down the food through respiration?"
"Right! Do you understand what that means?" Max prompted. Before Fang could say anything, Iggy spoke up.
"Umm, it means that photosynthesis and respiration are opposites? One builds food molecules, and the other tears them apart?" he suggested tentatively.
"Correct! Good job guys, you're getting it!" Max praised them. "Now we're going to get into the scientific terms and stuff." She pulled out a portable whiteboard and marker. Uncapping the marker, she explained as she hashed out an equation on the board. "Look at this. Six molecules of carbon dioxide and six water molecules are the raw materials used in photosynthesis. Light energy turns these into the products C6H12O6, which is a sugar, and six oxygen molecules. Are you with me?" she asked, looking back up at her students. Fang and Iggy nodded. "Now, the scientific equation for respiration is C6H12O6, the same sugar that is a product of photosynthesis, and six molecules of oxygen yield six molecules of carbon dioxide, six molecules of water, and energy. Do you see a resemblance between the equations?"
"Yeah." Fang looked over the board, pointing at the raw materials in the photosynthesis equation. "The raw materials here are the same as the products of respiration."
"And the raw materials in respiration are the same as the products of photosynthesis," Iggy added.
"Precisely. Do you guys see what that must mean?" Max asked them. The boys thought for a moment, but shrugged. "You're not thinking hard enough," Max reprimanded. "This is simple!"
Iggy scowled at her, but Fang's eyes lit up. "I get it," he said slowly. Max could practically see the gears turning in his mind. "If the raw materials of one equation are the products of the other, and vice versa, that means that you can't have one without the other!"
"Perfect answer Fang! See, you did come up with it." Max slapped him a high five while Iggy pouted in his chair. "Okay, since you guys actually learned something, we can take a lunch break right now. I'll go get the younger kids." Max pushed her chair back and jogged over to the table where Nudge, Gazzy and Angel were working. Fang and Iggy stood up, stretching out their stiff muscles.
"I don't like learning," Iggy sighed, stretching his legs after an hour of sitting down.
"It's okay. Max is a pretty good teacher, even though she is a little impatient." Fang picked up the science textbook and started thumbing through it. "Science is pretty cool," he added. "I don't mind learning about it."
"Yeah, it's math that I can't stand," Iggy agreed. "Let's go get some lunch now. I really am hungry." The two boys walked off towards the kitchen. "Have you ever wished you were a tree, so that you could just use photosynthesis and respiration to immediately get food whenever you felt like it?" Iggy asked suddenly.
"Well, not really whenever. It would have to be sunny," Fang corrected him. Iggy waved this off.
"Have you?" he pressed on. Fang raised an eyebrow at him.
"I don't see why this is so important, but no, I haven't. Why?" Fang asked. Iggy's ears reddened a little. "Have you?"
"Maybe," Iggy hedged. Fang started laughing at the idea of Iggy being a tree, before they raced off to the kitchens to get some food.