STEM(in) with Steph

Simple Sugar Glucose This month, I got to teach a class on cellular respiration, or how cells make energy.  Cellular respiration is the process of breaking down sugars into ATP (Adenosine triphosphate), what we call energy.  Cells can use Aerobic or Anaerobic pathways for breaking down sugars into energy.  Aerobic means 'with oxygen' while Anaerobic means 'without/lacking oxygen'.  Although a cell can use both pathways to produce energy, the efficiency of ATP production is greatly affected in a non-oxygen environment compared to when oxygen is present for the process.  For comparison, a single glucose (sugar) molecule will produce only 2 ATP in the fast paced and wasteful anaerobic process, while the aerobic process can produce 34-38 ATP from the same, single sugar molecule.   The complicated process of how a cell makes energy Our class experimented with yeast to see how the process works in real time.  We couldn't, of course, see the cellular processes taking place