Biology 2e is designed to cover the scope and sequence requirements of a typical two-semester biology course for science majors. The text provides comprehensive coverage of foundational research and core biology concepts through an evolutionary lens. Biology includes rich features that engage students in scientific inquiry, highlight careers in the biological sciences, and offer everyday applications. The book also includes various types of practice and homework questions that help students understand—and apply—key concepts. The 2nd edition has been revised to incorporate clearer, more current, and more dynamic explanations, while maintaining the same organization as the first edition. Art and illustrations have been substantially improved, and the textbook features additional assessments and related resources.

By the end of this section, you will be able to do the following:

Discuss the fundamental difference between anaerobic cellular respiration and fermentation
Describe the type of fermentation that readily occurs in animal cells and the conditions that initiate that fermentation

Two lessons and their associated activities explore cellular respiration and population growth in yeasts. Yeast cells are readily obtained and behave predictably, so they are very appropriate to use in middle school classrooms. In the first lesson, students are introduced to yeast respiration through its role in the production of bread and alcoholic beverages. A discussion of the effects of alcohol on the human body is used both as an attention-getting device, and as a means to convey important information at an impressionable age. In the associated activity, students set up a simple way to indirectly observe and quantify the amount of respiration occurring in yeast-molasses cultures. Based on questions that arise from this activity, in the second lesson students work in small groups as they design and execute their own experiments to determine how environmental factors affect yeast population growth.

Grades 9-12. What is ethanol? How much corn is dedicated to ethanol production? Why should corn be used to produce ethanol?

In the U.S., fuel ethanol production primarily utilizes corn, converting its starch into simple sugars for fermentation by yeast, yielding ethanol and byproducts like animal feed and CO2. This process, centered on fermentation, transforms sugars into ethanol and carbon dioxide, with about half a pound of ethanol produced per pound of sugar. Corn's high carbohydrate content makes it an efficient feedstock, allowing for the production of around 2.8 gallons of ethanol per bushel. Ethanol production not only uses the starch but also generates distillers grain, enriching livestock feed with remaining nutrients. Notably, 40% of U.S. corn goes towards ethanol production, enhancing energy independence by reducing oil imports, with 14.3 billion gallons of ethanol in 2014 offsetting 512 million barrels of crude oil. Ethanol's production energy primarily derives from solar energy captured by corn, with its energy output exceeding the fossil fuels used for its cultivation and processing by 20-40%. Additionally, ethanol offers environmental benefits, including a 10-20% reduction in greenhouse gases compared to gasoline, equivalent to removing 20 million vehicles from the road, highlighting its role in sustainable energy and reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

This learning module includes 7 lessons and/or activities.

What is your favorite food? Chances are a soybean product is being used to process it or, if it’s a meat dish, was used to feed the animal. Other living things (microbes) help to make our food, too. Check out these activities to see what’s cooking! This unit features 4 lessons and 18 files. Lessons are aligned to NGSS.

Course written by Arna Ganguly. Energy comes in many different forms, but all energy on earth is a result of the sun. All of our energy sources come from biomass, organic material that was formed from plants and animals; some many thousands of years ago and some just last year. Biomass contains stored chemical energy from the sun. We have come to rely more on fossil fuels (formed from living things that died and were converted into coal, natural gas or oil over millions of years) than on renewable forms of energy called bio-renewable energy. Take this course to learn how we are producing bio-renewable energy from biomass and waste products. Upon completion of this course, you will be able to: Describe how biomass can be converted to energy through thermochemical and biochemical reactions, Describe the process of pyrolysis or catalytic cracking, Describe the process of anaerobic digestion, Describe the process of transesterification, Describe the process of fermentation

Have you ever looked on a food label and seen soy products on it, even though it wasn’t made from soybeans? This unit explores the various uses of soy in foods and how soy can be used to accomplish various functions in food science by asking students to measure the nutrient content of various foods, determine the function of soy in foods, and shows how fermentation of soy can be used to make different foods. This unit features 4 lessons and 17 files. Lessons are aligned to NGSS.

This pathway provides an introduction to cellular metabolism, including a comparison of the processes of photosynthesis and cellular respiration. For a deeper look at this topic, we recommend the pathways Metabolism, Cellular Respiration and The Biological Process of Photosynthesis from the OpenStax textbook Biology for AP® Courses.

Students are presented with information that will allow them to recognize that yeasts are unicellular organisms that are useful to humans. In fact, their usefulness is derived from the contrast between the way yeast cells and human cells respire. Specifically, while animal cells derive energy from the combination of oxygen and glucose and produce water and carbon dioxide as by-products, yeasts respire without oxygen. Instead, yeasts break glucose down and produce alcohol and carbon dioxide as their by-products. The lesson is also intended to provoke questions from students about the effects of alcohol on the human body, to which the teacher can provide objective answers.

Sourdough experiment: grow wild yeast and bacteria to make your own sourdough bread