Cellular Respiration – Lab Activity, Worksheets, & Reading Passage

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Engage your students in the concept of cellular respiration with 2 hands-on, interactive labs!

Not sure where to start when teaching the concept of cellular respiration? It can be difficult to help students understand this important process. That’s why this lesson is built around 2 labs that will give students direct experience with the phenomenon! Students begin with a microscope lab viewing a human cheek cell (options are provided if you have already completed this lab in the cell unit or if you need a virtual option). ***Note*** This is a variation of the lab found in the Cells and Organelle unit. This is followed by a second lab in which students feed baker’s yeast and watch it metabolize through cellular respiration!

This lesson packet is filled with activities and resources perfect for the middle school life science classroom. The lesson can be taught as a stand-alone or as part of the Cellular Respiration and Metabolism Unit. Students continue their inquiry about cellular respiration with a reading passage and a journey through the cell worksheet.

Students will investigate the question: How do cells use the nutrients delivered by the circulatory system and processed through the digestive and respiratory systems to create energy for the body?

Recommended Age Group: middle school, grades 6-8

Included Materials:

➜ Student worksheets and teacher instructions for Human Cheek Cell lab (with a video lab option available)

➜ Student worksheets and teacher instructions for Feeding Yeast Cells Lab

➜ Reading passage with 3 formats available for differentiation (a standard PDF, an interactive “note-taking” style, and a digital version available through Google Slides)

➜ Journey Through the Cell student worksheet

➜ Teaching Guide

Materials needed for labs:

➜ microscopes (ideas for alternatives provided in teacher guide)

➜ microscope slides

➜ slide covers

➜ toothpicks

➜ coloring agent (optional – directions provided to make your own)

➜ Baker’s Yeast (original, not Instant)

➜ Sugar

➜ Quart size zipper-close baggies

This lesson is part of a focus on the following NGSS standards:

MS-LS1-7: Develop a model to describe how food is rearranged through chemical reactions forming new molecules that support growth and/or release energy as this matter moves through an organism.

MS-LS1-3: Use argument supported by evidence for how the body is a system of interacting subsystems composed of groups of cells.

The standards is covered fully in the unit bundle.

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