Cellular Respiration

            Before we embarked on this journey, called Cellular Respiration, I remember my terrified classmates and myself dreading this unit. Mrs. McCurdy had warned us about the confusing and intrinsic process of cellular respiration. As we would soon find out, she had been right. During the first few days of this material, our classroom was mayhem. Every student in Honors Biology was ferociously jotting down what felt like every word Mrs. McCurdy would say, in fear of missing a key reaction. However, after gaining a firmer grasp on the material, everyone could recite processes of Glycolysis, the Krebs cycle, and the Electron Transport Chain backwards!

            Although understanding the process of Cellular Respiration is an extensive and daunting task, it’s certainly possible. I created posters and a catchy song to help understand it better. Ultimately, I unfortunately didn’t record the song myself, in fear of public humiliation (I’m not the best singer…) Luckily, my sister, Sammy, was able to step up to the task. To the tune of Katy Perry’s hit, “I Kissed a Girl,” my song entitled “Cellular Respiration” explains the 3 main steps of Cellular Respiration. After recording the song, I created a “Jing” including digital pictures of my posters and my song. I then uploaded my Jing to my Bio Blog. Underneath are the lyrics, so feel free to sing along!

Approximate Lyrics (note: some words were switched around during the recording):

In order, to get energy,

For things like watching tv,

We use the mitochondria,

We rely on cellular respiration,

It’s so confusing,

Only pros can sing about it,

You should really know all about it,

In order to ace your test!

Glycolysis,

starts with a glucose,

A 6 carbon sugar,

But before we, knew it,

ATP had phosphoralted,

And the whole thing broke apart,

Into two PGALs

It still wasn’t happy,

It had to take some time to think,

Each PGAL lost its phosphate,

Rearranged intoooo a pyruvate!

To do this,

2ADPs turned into ATP!

2NAD+ turned into NADH!

And we are left with a pyruvate,

If we have oxygen,

Then we will go to the Krebs Cycle,

But if we don’t,

I guess we’ll just ferment,

Anaerobic fermentation,

Is kind of a drag cause we only make 2ATPs,

But that’s just life,

So lets just move on,

To the krebs cycle!

Next step in aerobic respiration,

We bring our pyruvates over to the matrix!

We lose NADH  and CO2,

Acetyl CoA helps bring the pyrvuate in,

Oxaloacetate + 2carbon join together!

We lose CO2 and NADH,

So it becomes a 5 carbon sugar,

And then it does again,

It becomes a 4 carbon sugar,

And creates ATP!

We then release NADH and FADH2,

And then we are just oxaloacetate!

The Electron Transport Chain,

NADH turns into NAD+

And FADH2 turns into FADH

Which makes H+ and E-,

The E- fuel the stair case across the cytochromes,

And for each cytochrome pumps one H+ into the matrix,

The H+ pump across the ATP synthase,

Which brings together lonely ADP and P’s!!!

The H+, E- and 02 come together,

To make WATER!

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I don't own this song, I used it from this youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJYxAIGriTw

The song in the background is the acoustic version of "I Kissed a Girl" by Katy Perry!

No copyright intended.