AP Biology Has Gone Bananas!
Students in AP Biology with teacher Mr. Tim McEachern used bananas and microscopes to learn about how starches are made and why they are converted into simpler sugars. Students performed chemical tests to determine the sweetness of different bananas. The dark ovals in the microscope (pictured) are starches.
Green bananas (left) have more bitter-tasting starches. As the banana ripens over time, the starches are broken down into sweeter simpler sugars. Ripe bananas (right) have fewer starches, or no starches when viewed under the microscope. Students were able to connect that plants, created by God to be an energy source for many different organisms, use sweet-tasting fruits to get animals and people to eat the fruit and indirectly spread the plant seeds far away from the parent plant, ensuring the success of the next plant generation. A win-win for plants and animals alike!
Back
