Lab 2: Essential Life Elements (Sample CER)

Learning Objective:
The composition of macromolecules required by living organisms.

Background: Macromolecule, by its name, is a very large molecule that is important to survival and
biological processes. Examples of macromolecules are lipids, carbohydrates, proteins, and nucleic acids.
Many macromolecules consist of essential life elements such as hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, and
phosphorus. Since these elements are key to the makeup of macromolecules that are needed for
survival, these elements are too important to life.
QUESTION
Do plants require all the essential life elements?
CLAIM
Example: Like all living things, plants do require all the essential life elements (C, H, O, N, P, and S)
to produce macromolecules (carbohydrates, lipids, and Proteins) for growth, development, and
reproduction.
Prediction and Justification: Essential life elements such as oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen,
and phosphorus are all important for survival and growth. Besides the oxygen, hydrogen, and
carbon that can be found in the atmosphere, the sample with the highest amount of nutrients will
allow for the most growth.
EVIDENCE (sample) REASONING (Based on scientific
Procedure literatures and your macromolecules chart)
1. Obtain 3 petri dish, 15 mung beans,
3 “soil” substrates a-distilled water
2. Place 1 “soil”, 5 beans in each dish. b-fertilizer
3. Measure and add 5ml of tap water c-tap water
to each dish.
4. Close lid and place in safe cool area. The plant grown with the B solution
should’ve been the one with the most
5. After germination (2-3 days), add
growth because of the nitrogen and
unknown solution A to dish 1,
phosphorus it provides to the plant.
unknown solution B to dish 2, and Though, in our experiment, that plant did
unknown solution C to dish 3. not exhibit as much growth until later on in
6. Record Data after 5 days of “growth” the experiment. This is because the plant
did not have leaves yet. The leaves are what
absorb the nutrients to promote plant
Data Table
growth. So, once the plant did have leaves,
the plant was able to grow significantly. By
Plant Growth
the end of the experiment, the plant grown
with the B solution became the most grown
Unknown Avg. Avg. Observation
in terms of height compared to the plants
Solution Height Mass (visual
grown with solution A and solution C. Due
(mm) (mg) comparison-
to the quiz and test days that we had during
side-by-side)
this experiment, we were not able to
measure the seed growth daily. If we were
A 57 480 to do this lab again, we would first measure
102 360 the initial mass and length of the seeds, and
108 240 measure their growth everyday.

B 37 380
81 400
113 240

C 42 420
74 360
102 180
Graph (Properly label x and y axis)