in this video we're going to learn about respiration so we'll cover what respiration is how organisms use the energy from respiration and finally the different types of respiration which are aerobic and anerobic respiration let's start with what spiration is if we think about the energy we use to function the majority of it comes from molecules of glucose to release this energy we use a process called cellular respiration which we can describe as an exothermic reaction which transfers energy from glucose and continuously occurs in living cells so basically it involves breaking apart glucose molecules to release the energy that's trapped inside notice that I keep saying release energy that's because energy isn't being made it's just being transferred from the glucose molecule you're not allowed to say that the energy has been created also all exothermic means is that the reaction releases energy before we explore how respiration Works let's take a look at three examples of how organism use their energy one way is to build up larger molecules from lots of smaller ones for example combining amino acids to form proteins another is for muscular contraction so that we can move our Limbs and move about and a third is maintaining our body temperature so that we can stay nice and warm even in colder environments as we said a minute ago though these are only a few examples energy is actually needed for loads of reactions in our body all the time getting back to respiration though there are two types that you need to know about aerobic respiration and anerobic respiration aerobic respiration is the more common type and takes place whenever there's enough oxygen which is a key point to remember it's by far the most efficient way to transfer energy from glucose and it takes place continuously in both plants and animals specifically though it takes place within these subcellular structures known as mitochondria the word equation for aerobic respiration is glucose plus oxygen goes to form carbon dioxide plus water or as a chemical equation would look like this notice that there six of everything apart from the glucose this is because glucose is a much bigger molecule so you just have to remember that its formula is C6 h126 now anerobic respiration is basically respiration without oxygen and we only do this when we really have to for example when we're sprinting and can't get enough oxygen to our tissues to keep up with the demands of the more efficient arobic respiration in humans the word equation for anerobic respiration is glucose goes to form lactic acid and there are really two reasons why we prefer not to use it one is that glucose is only partially broken down which makes it inefficient because we're not unlocking all of the energy within the glucose molecule the second problem is that it produces a lactic acid which is toxic so it has to be removed from our body later on the last thing we need to cover is anerobic respiration in plants and yeast which is a bit different this time the word equation is glucose goes through ethanol and carbon dioxide in the case of yeast we call this process fermentation and we can take advantage of it in industry for example we add yeast to bread so that the carbon dioxide it produces for forms little pockets of air that make the bread appear light and fluffy and because fermentation produces ethanol which is a type of alcohol we also use yeast to make beer and wine if you haven't heard yet you can find all of our videos on our website Cognito dog you'll also find questions flash cards exam style questions and pass papers and we track all of your progress so that you always know what to study next so sign up for free by clicking here or browse our playlist here on YouTube