Scientists are concerned about the devastating impacts of climate change fueled by increasing carbon emissions and population growth, including melting ice caps, rising sea levels, more extreme weather, and widespread drought. Research examines how extreme conditions like temperature variations, dehydration, and changes in pH affect the activity of the enzyme catalase to understand protein stability under stressful environments. A classroom experiment has students investigate catalase reactivity under different stresses and submit lab reports for peer review to gain experience evaluating scientific work.

1. Protein
Denaturation:
an examination of the critical en
Catalase

2. London, November 29 2010 - UK Meteorological Office researchers have
shown that the world could warm by 4 °C by 2060, devastating much of the
Amazon rainforest and changing living conditions throughput the world

3. Climate change
and an EXPLOSION
in human population fueled
by the rapid consumption
in fossil fuels (7 billion people
On Earth estimated this 2012)
are Inexorably linked

4. agree that increased
Scientists
Emissions from carbon
based fossil fuels into the atmosphere
will result in devastating ecological
shifts throughout the globe
 Polar ice caps are melting
 Sea levels are rising
 Oceans are becoming more acidic
 Extreme weather events such as
heat waves, hurricanes and, most
perniciously, drought are becoming
more common place

5. Photo taken on Feb. 24, 2012 shows
cracked land in a pond at Fanglang
Village in Malong County of southwest
China's Yunnan Province. A brutal
drought has wracked the province since
late last year, leaving at least 3.15
million people without sufficient
supplies of drinking water as of
Monday, according to government
statistics. (Xinhua/Lin Yiguang)
DROUGHT
will become more frequent and common
place

6. Extreme DROUGHT
n Kenya has displaced more than two million
people, put 12 million more in
need of immediate food
ssistance and has killed
more than 30%of the county’s cattle-
ompletely devastating
ribes whose main source of wealth
s measured in heads of
attle
These cattle died when biological functions could no longer be
sustained because of extreme conditions

7. .
Metabolic enzymes function best in aqueous, buffered
solutions with a constant body temperature of 37degress
Celsius.
Their viability under extreme conditions is important to
understand
The process of protein/ enzyme breakdown is called
DENATURATION…
The reactivity of catalase
is highly visible

8. Objective:
Students will examine the effects of
extreme conditions on
biological molecules
They will formulate their own
experimental designs and submit their
reports for peer review.
Process:
Students will examine the
reactivity of the enzyme
Catalase a critical enzyme involved
in removing toxic hydrogen epoxied –
a poisonous metabolic by product.
2(H2O2)----catalase---- 2H2O + O2

9. Students will have the opportunity to
examine catalase reactivity using potato
(a rich source of the enzyme and much
neater to work with than beef liver another rich source) of the
They will pick 3 of the 4 conditions to examine
 Temperature extremes (freezing vs. hot)
 Hypertonic (salt) solution vs. control
 Dehydration vs., control
 Acidic or basic conditions
Reactivity of catalase under different extremes

10. Students will work independently while being ‘linked up’
to a group of 3-4 students
They submit lab reports for peer review
where their
methodology
experimental design
conclusions
will be assessed in a manner similar to the process that
Scientists engage e in.