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complete revisions on this first one. In general, all your sections are too short and lacking in detail. Your
introduction and discussion, especially, need to be expanded. Also, throughout the report you have a
misconception about cellular respiration and photosynthesis in plants, which means that you are drawing
conclusions based on incorrect information. See comments for more detailed feedback and explanation of
scores in the rubric. Make a tutorial appointment for next week so we can look at a model lab report
together and discuss your revisions.
Score: 47.5/65 C Excellent Solid Developing Needs work

General/Format 9.5 /10

Title (2) 2

Order and clear sections (1) 1

Writing (5) 4.5 (some typos, but

Typos? Using past tense? No generally easy to
first person? follow)
Overall flow and clarity

Parenthetical citations and 2

references cited section at end
(2)
Introduction 7.5/12
Cellular respiration background 2.5 (far too brief,
(5) missing information
What is process? What goes in asked for in guidelines)
and out? What organisms
perform cellular respiration?
Etc.
Organism background and lab 3.5 (no background
overview (5) on worms)
Hypothesis/prediction for your 1.5 (justification is
experimental variable(s) (2) based on incorrect
info)
Methods/Materials 5.5/8
Clear/correct explanation of all 4.5 (no discussion of
steps, including calculation of mass correction
corrected diff and mass method)
correction. (5)
Appropriate level of detail for 1 (not enough
reproducibility (3) detail, left out
equalizing
volumes)
Results 8/10
 Mass corrected graph, 5 (not mass
appropriately labeled (6) corrected)

Text captions for graph (4) 3 (give more

context)

Discussion 17/25

Do results support hypothesis? 2

(2)

Analysis of data, citing rates, 3 (its super short,

referring to specific data for and as a result not
support (5) clear)

Explanation of biology behind 6 (based on

results (8) incorrect info, and
also could suggest
more possibilities)

Error analysis is specific to 4(you mention the

actual results, and makes sense mung beans at 5 min,
(5) but not the worms)

Conclusions - what does this lab 2 (this is just far to

tell you about respiration? Any truncated to summarize
implications? Follow up tests? and then extend your
Connect to broader picture. (5) investigation. Also, your
suggestion for further
research is based on a
misconception.)

Comment [1]: Write that out in your title.

Cellular Respiration in Mung Beans vs Worms
Comment [2]: join
Emeline Kao Comment [4]: That's a problematic statement. Glucose,
as a molecule, has an amount of chemical potential
energy. Cellular respiration converts chemical potential
energy in the form of glucose to chemical potential
Introduction: energy in the form of ATP, which is more readily usable
for the cell since each ATP holds smaller amount of
Cellular respiration is an energy coupling process, which uses energy from the exergonic energy.

breaking apart of glucose to endergonically joins ADP and phosphates to create ATP. It is a Comment [6]: This is far too brief. We need to know
more about the process. What are the inputs and
universal reaction, which occurs in all living things in and around the mitochondria of their cells. outputs? and why does a cell need ATP energy instead
of glucose energy?
Ultimately, cellular respiration is the process by which glucose is converted into energy.
This needs to be more in depth to give your reader
background on this important process.
 It may come as a surprise that plants perform cellular respiration. Usually, photosynthesis
is associated with plants, but when there is no carbon dioxide available, plants consume oxygen
and perform cellular respiration in order to produce ATP (Why do Plants Need Oxygen?). In
this lab we wanted to see the difference in cellular respiration rates between plants, represented
by the mung beans, and animals, represented by worms. Because there would have been carbon
dioxide trapped in the vial when it was first submerged, the mung beans could have performed
photosynthesis in the beginning of the experiment, but once the carbon dioxide was used up, they
would have been forced to switch to cellular respiration. The mung beans are also at a later rate
of germination than dry seeds, but they are also not fully germinated. This would mean that
theyre respiring, but theyre not consuming as much oxygen as a fully germinated mung bean.
In this lab we took steps to measure the amount of oxygen gas. The organisms were
placed in a glass vial with KOH and then submerged. When submerged, a bubble went up to a
certain mL marking on the vial, which measured the gas volume in the vial. As the organisms
consumed oxygen, the gas volume was reduced. The CO2 produced by cellular respiration would
normally have replaced the gas volume lost by the consumption of O2, but the KOH turned the
CO2 gas into a solid as it was produced so that the gas volume reduced as O2 was consumed.
Along with the two organisms, we also had a control vial with the same setup filled with beads,
which served as a control. If the control seemed to consume O2 or somehow gas volume
increased in the control vial, we edited our data from the vials containing the organisms. If gas
volume was reduced we assume that the same amount was reduced from the vials with the other
organisms due to some sort of error, so that amount was added to the gas volume recorded from
the other two vials and the opposite was true if the gas volume for the control seemed to
increase.
With this experiment we tried to ascertain what, if any, was the difference in oxygen
consumption through cellular respiration between plants and animals. We hypothesized that, in a
room temperature environment, the mung beans would consume oxygen at a more rapid rate than
the worms because they have an internal source of oxygen, which they produce through
photosynthesis (Why do Plants Need Oxygen?), while the worms only have whats trapped with
them in the vial.
Methods and Materials:
Comment [7]: This happens even when there is carbon
dioxide available. Plants are constantly performing
cellular respiration since photosynthesis just makes
glucose - plants still need to convert that to the ATP
form of energy.
Comment [8]: Those are not either/or processes. The
mung beans, since they are germinating and do not yet
have leaves, are unable to perform photosynthesis
since they don't have any chloroplasts and chlorophyll
yet.
Comment [9]: Do you think so? Or is it that germinating
mung beans are undergoing extremely rapid growth,
which requires a tremendous amount of energy? You
should have a source here to back up your information.
Comment [10]: You've given some background on
mung beans, but you haven't told us anything about
worms, your other test subject. What is some
information about worms (their optimal temp? activity
levels? degree of musculature?) that could help you
predict or understand why they have a certain rate of
cellular respiration?
Comment [12]: Why? Your first paragraph should have
explained how oxygen gas relates to cellular respiration
so that this statement would make sense.
Comment [14]: and why would they be consuming
oxygen? again, paragraph 1 should have discussed
how oxygen was used as the final electron acceptor
and 6 oxygen are used for every glucose that is
oxidized
Comment [16]: Interesting thought, but that is only true
for plants with leaves, not for germinating seeds.
Comment [17]: Not nearly enough detail. The process
of volume equalization is completely missing.
 In this lab, our goal was to compare the rates of oxygen consumed by different
organisms. We were comparing mung beans and worms and we also had a control, which
contained beads. Each organism was placed in a glass vial with a sample of KOH dripped onto a Comment [19]: You're skipping a lot of steps. How did
you ensure you had an equal volume of each sample?
cotton ball and submerged underwater. We placed non absorbent cotton as a barrier between the Did you need to weigh your organisms?
Comment [21]: how much?
KOH and the organism in each vial as KOH is harmful to living things. The glass vial had a wide
chamber where the organism and KOH sat and a long thinner tube coming off of it with marks
measuring up to 1 mL. When the vial was submerged, an air bubble reached to the 1 mL mark,
which decreased as oxygen was consumed by the organism. Usually the volume of oxygen taken
from the vial would be replaced with the same volume of CO2, but the KOH in the vial turned
the CO2 into a solid so that the only gas being measured was oxygen. Comment [23]: Don't include this. Your goal in the
materials and methods is to give someone instructions
We began by resting each vial in the water in order to acclimate their inhabitants to the so they can repeat your experiment. Any explanation
as to WHY certain procedural steps were taken should
temperature of the water. After about five minutes we completely submerged the vials. We took appear in the procedural overview in the introduction.

measurements at every five minute interval, from zero up to twenty minutes, of how much the
gas volume had been reduced.
In order to interpret the data, there were some corrections, which needed to be done. Comment [24]: remove commas

First, so that the graph was calculating the volume of gas consumed and not the volume of gas
remaining in the vial, we subtracted each gas volume after the zero time point from the volume
of gas at the zero time point for all three vials. If there was a change in gas volume in the beads,
we used that to correct the other two organism; we knew that any deviation in gas volume in the Comment [26]: organisms

bead vial was due to some kind of external error, not any sort of respiration. We subtracted the
change in the volume of gas in the bead vial from the volume consumed in the other two vials at
the same time point. Comment [28]: What about your last calculation of
mass correction?

Results:
 Comment [30]: Not a good graph title. Respiration rate
in worms and mung beans

Figure 1: Overall, worms consume more oxygen than mung beans through cellular respiration.
Mung beans consumed oxygen at a rate of about 0.0036 mL of oxygen per minute, while the
worms consumed about 0.0028 mL of oxygen per minute. Comment [32]: Where is your mass corrected data?
Comment [34]: Caption needs to give more context.
"This graph shows the rate of respiration for 20
germinating mung beans and 2 worms. etc..."
Discussion:

Our graphs shows that overall, mung beans consume more oxygen than worms. The
worms, however, consumed oxygen nearly twice as fast than the mung beans at any given data
point. These results diverge from our assumption that the mung beans would consume oxygen
more quickly than the worms.
If we assume that these results were one hundred percent accurate, this could tell us that,
in the beginning of the experiment, the worms were stressed and were consuming oxygen more
rapidly because of this, but they calmed down towards the end. And, while plants do have
nervous systems, their responses to their environments are based on chemical signals and not
fear of pain or dying (Dainello). This could explain the higher respiration rates of the worms in
the beginning of the experiment and then their fall behind the mung beans in terms of rate of
respiration, as we expected, later in the experiment.
Because the results were fairly linear, excluding the the strange increase in gas volume in
the vial containing the mung beans at the five minute mark, this outlier was most likely due to an
Comment [36]: hmm that doesn't make sense. At any
given data point, it's not a rate. If we cut off your first 5
minutes, and just started time 0 from there, it look like
the mung beans actually have a faster rate since they
are starting from a lower volume. (the slop of the mung
beans if steeper for the last 15 minutes, and it seems
like something funky happened with your first 5
minutes).
Comment [37]: hypothesis
Comment [38]: Where is your analysis. Use specific
rates. Did you mass correct this?
To expand your analysis, you could discuss differing
slopes and rates if you omit clearly erroneous points
(for example the first 5 minutes). You have the right
idea in trying to look at any point in time, but that just
shows change in volume, not rate.
Comment [39]: but they consumed zero oxygen for the
first 5 minutes.
Comment [41]: Ok, so you get that here. It feels like you
should discuss some more possibilities. Do the
organisms have different optimal temperatures? Does
the high growth rate of a germinating seed have
something to do with it?
error. One of the most likely explanations is that the open end of the vial could have risen above
the surface of the water for a moment and let some air in.
The versatility of plants compared to animals is very intriguing. What allows plants to be
able to switch from photosynthesis to cellular respiration when carbon dioxide is unavailable? It
could be interesting to test which method of ATP production plants prefer.
Citations:
Dainello, Frank. "Do Plants And Vegetables Feel?" Horticulture Update. Aggie-Horticulture,
n.d. Web. 26 Sept. 2016.
Why Do Plants Need Oxygen?" UCSB Science Line. UCSB, n.d. Web. 26 Sept. 2016.
Comment [43]: and also over the first 5 minutes the
worms consumed no oxygen. You should address that
as well.
Comment [45]: hmm but that wouldn't happen for 2
vials...I expect something with pressure and
temperature, or the wrong volume of beads, meant that
the control was not doing the correction properly. Did
you wait the full 5 minutes to let equilibration happen
before starting? If not, then the beads wouldn't have
been a valid control at first as the gas volume and
temperature was still stabilizing from being submerged.
Comment [47]: This is a misconception. Plants always
do cellular respiration, and photosynthesis is not a
substitute for cellular respiration.
Comment [49]: This is a vague proposal. Make your
suggestion more specific.
Comment [51]: Abrupt change. Can you tie this
conclusion in more?