Learning Objectives:

2.1 Explain how biological systems use free energy based on empirical data that all organisms require constant energy input to maintain organization, to grow, and to reproduce.

2.2 Justify a scientific claim that free energy is required for living systems to maintain organization, to grow, or to reproduce, but that multiple strategies for obtaining and using energy exist in different living systems.

2.3 Predict how changes in free energy availability affect organisms, populations, and/or ecosystems.

2.4 Use representations to pose scientific questions about what mechanisms and structural features allow organisms to capture, store, or use free energy.

2.5 Construct explanations of the mechanisms and structural features of cells that allow organisms to capture, store or use free energy.

2.23 Design a plan for collecting data to show that all biological systems (cells, organisms, populations, communities, and ecosystems) are affected by complex biotic and abiotic interactions.

2.41 Evaluate data to show the relationship between photosynthesis and respiration in the flow of free energy through a system.

4.17 Analyze data to identify how molecular interactions affect structure and function.

4.22 Construct explanations based on evidence of how variation in molecular units provides cells with a wider range of functions.