Yeast Investigation Lab

Report
Recently in class, you saw a demonstration of yeast growing in a flask.
We used sugar and water to wake up the yeast and make it start growing and reproducing.

Your task now is to create an experiment that tests the effect of one variable on the growth rate
of yeast. You can work on this sheet with your group members, but you must understand the
answers. Next week you will have a test on these questions to check your understanding.

Name: _______________

Group members: ______________________________

BACKGROUND
1. The reason we are doing this investigation is to see what makes yeast grow. Yeast is a
single-celled microorganism.

a. What does single-celled mean?

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b. What does microorganism mean?

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2. How do we know that yeast is alive? What evidence is there for this?
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3. What gas does yeast produce when its growing? ________________________________

VARIABLES
1. Decide what the Dependent Variable will be (the one you are measuring for your results)
2. Write down 8 other variables that could change your results.
3. Choose one of those 8 variables to be the Independent variable (the one you will change to test).
All of the others will then become Controlled variables, (the ones you keep the same to make your
experiment fair).

Dependent variable
(measured)
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________________

AIM
The aim of this investigation is to see how _______________________________________
affects the ________________________________________.

Hypothesis
A hypothesis is a statement saying what you believe will happen. It relates to the independent
to the dependent variables.

Yeast will produce carbon dioxide _________________ if __________________________

Write: faster or slower

Procedure
Write down the steps that you followed when you did this experiment.

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2. ______________________________________________________________________
3. ______________________________________________________________________
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6. ______________________________________________________________________
7. ______________________________________________________________________
8. ______________________________________________________________________

Diagram
Draw a labelled diagram of how your experiment will be set up

Results
Use this space to draw up a table to record your results, then draw a graph of
your results on the graph paper provided.

Discussion and evaluation

1. What do your experiment results show about the growth of yeast? (You must relate
your Independent variables to the Dependent variables.)
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2. Was your hypothesis supported by your results? Explain.

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3. Respiration and photosynthesis are two processes that occur in cells. Each of these
processes can be shown be a word equation.
Photosynthesis: Water + Carbon dioxide + Sunlight Oxygen + Sugar (Glucose)
Respiration: Oxygen + Sugar (Glucose) Carbon dioxide + Water + Energy

Which of these processes is yeast carrying out when it makes bubbles of gas?
Suggest two ways that you could check this using an experiment.
Yeast is carrying out ________________________________________________________
We could check this by
(1)_________________________________________________________________________
(2) _________________________________________________________________________

4. How could you improve your investigation?

(Were there any mistakes you could fix? How could you have changed your procedure to work better? Are there
any follow-up investigations you could do? Write at least two improvements you could make.)

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