So it took me awhile to get Carbohydrates down. I did about half a lab(I missed the other half because I was sick), took a quiz.....twice (I bombed the first time and got a B the second time....I would have aced it but I mixed two sugars up even though I knew what they were! I'm still mad at myself for that!), and now I am doing this blog post. I learned a little from each activity I did but most of the learning came out of yes......reading the book. I'm starting to think our Biology book is useful in this class. I still think I can learn a lot more about carbohydrates. I may understand them now but I still see myself studying a lot before that final comes. But for now here is all the information I read about last night and learned the past few weeks in class.
The three elements in all carbohydrates are carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Most of the carbohydrates have a carbon to hydrogen to oxygen ratio of 1:2:1(fact from the book!). There are two times the number of hydrogen atoms then oxygen atoms. The word carbohydrate has single sugar molecules and also sugar chains. The length of the chains can go anywhere from a few sugars to hundreds of sugars. The long chains are called polymers.
Carbohydrates are made up of saccharides. There are three type of saccharides: mono, di, and poly. Two of the most common examples of monosaccharides are glucose and fructose. (FUN FACT: Glucose is a hexagon of carbon elements and fructose is a pentagon of carbons.) Some examples of disaccharides are sucrose and lactose. Some examples of polysaccharides are starch and cellulose.
Monosaccharides have only a single sugar molecule. They are called simple sugars. The molecular formula for a monosaccharide is some multiple of CH(2)O. This suggests that every carbon is bonded to an H and an -OH. That is not strictly correct. (In the above line the 2 is supposed to be a small 2 near the bottom of the H but I did not know how to do that on the computer.) Sugars have a lot of hydroxyl groups and because of this polar functional group they are soluble in water. (another fact from the book! see how useful it is?!)
Monosaccharides often do not stay mono. Monosaccharides bond together and make disaccharides. This happens during a dehydration reaction. For example glucose and fructose make sucrose. Or two glucoses can combine and make maltose. (okay so just for a little funny story...I learned the underlined facts when Mr. Ludwig and Michael were arguing about it after school!) Sucrose is another name for table sugar. It is a disaccharide of special interest because sucrose is the form in which sugar is transported in plants. (FUN FACT: Sucrose is the sugar used to sweeten our food)
Polysaccharides are polymers of monosaccharides or many monosaccharides combined together. Another way to describe them is complex carbohydrates. There are some types of polysaccharides that function as short- term energy storing molecules. These have to be storage molecules because they are not as soluble in water and they are much larger than a normal sugar. Also, because they are bigger they cannot easily pass through the plasma membrane. The polysaccahride is broken down to release sugar molecules when an organism needs energy. Starch is often found in plants and glycogen is used in animals. The complex carbohydrate cellulose is used in plants to form a cell wall.
I hope dear reader(I'm pretty positive this is Mr. Ludwig, but for anyone else too) that you learned a few things about carbohydrates today. But even a little more I hoped you learn that you can learn things from anywhere. Any resource you have use it! It can be an experiment, a quiz, an article on the computer, the book, or even a conversation between your teacher and a really smart kid!
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