Westside’s biology department has a plethora of experiments that provide their students with the knowledge and understanding of learning how energy is used.
Recently, biology classrooms participated in burning different types of food to learn how energy is conserved and what cycles of matter are.
Biology teacher Micheal Schroeder takes his students through this experiment with an optimistic and energetic attitude.
“We are burning food to see the actual representation of the energy that you get with the flame, how long it burns and how much energy you can actually sustain,” Schroeder said.
Schroeder also explained how he gets his students excited about this project.
“Fire is fun, but it is neat that a lot of the time in biology, most of the things we teach, the kids cannot see or touch,” Schroeder said.
Schroeder believes that seeing experiments on a larger scale can sometimes be more beneficial.
“Instead of only being able to observe things at a microscopic level, the students are able to see fire in front of them and visualize it,” Schroeder said.
Along with Schroeder’s excitement with this project, many of the students are just as enthusiastic to participate in burning different foods.
Freshman Amelia Deupree noted her favorite part of participating in this experiment.
“My favorite part of the project was seeing the different results in each of the foods we burned,” Deupree stated.
Duepree explained that there were a multitude of different foods that were burned, each showing a different outcome.
“It was very interesting to see the different outcomes in the foods, especially how different they smelled and how much they smoked,” Duepree said.
