Principle

There was a time over 3 billion years ago when there was little or no oxygen in the earthly atmosphere. This changed with the emergence of green plants, in the form of cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae. After a relatively short time, the oxygen content was at about the level we know today, but most of the unicellular organisms that existed until then died out because oxygen was toxic to them. Thereupon, organisms that consume oxygen developed. Some scientists even assume that there would never have been multicellular organisms without the high O2 content. Now it is like this: plants produce O2 and absorb CO2, animals consume O2 and emit CO2.

Benefits

• Especially understandable and didactically prepared description of the experiment (reference to everyday life etc.) including protocol questions.
• Future-oriented teaching: Integration into digital science lessons with tablets or smartphones.
• Increased motivation of students by using the intuitive measureAPP.
• Increased media competence.
• Compact, easily transportable experimental set-up
• suitable for demo experiments and practical training
• Flexible test execution thanks to wireless data transmission

Tasks

The pupils and students should be involved in this experiment:

• determine and observe the O2 content in the reaction vessel with plants and animals.
• Determine and observe the O2 content in the reaction vessel with animals.
• Determine and observe the O2 content in the reaction vessel with plants.

Learning Objectives

The aim of this experiment is to familiarize students with the material cycle of O2 and CO2.