Module 1

Module 1—Thinking Energy

Lesson 2—How Much Energy?

Get Focused

In Lesson 1 you identified your daily energy intake from food. The food you eat provides you with chemical potential energy to maintain your body functions and your activity level. Although foods can vary greatly in the quantity of energy they provide, the energy contained within all food can be traced back to the sun—the biosphere’s ultimate energy source.

The initial planning you completed for your ecotour in Lesson 1 probably indicates that your tour participants will be active. They will need to replace the energy they burn completing the many activities you have planned for them. You may recall calculating the energy required to complete some work in a previous science course, but how is the energy in food determined? How can chemical potential energy in food be measured?

In this lesson you will investigate how the energy content of food is determined and how the principles used to collect energy are applied to other technologies. You will use what you learn to create a list of foods to offer the participants in your ecotour.

Consider the following question as you complete Lesson 2:

• How is energy quantified?

Module 1: Lesson 2 Assignment

Download a copy of the teacher-marked Module 1: Lesson 2 Assignment to your computer at this time. You will receive further instructions on how to complete this assignment later in this lesson.

In this lesson, you will also receive further instructions on, and you will complete, part of the Module 1 Assessment: Choice of Snack Foods.

You must decide what to do with the questions that are not marked by your teacher.

Remember that these questions provide you with the practice and feedback that you need to successfully complete this course. You may decide to respond to all the questions and place those answers in your course folder.