Your friend asks for your help checking their essay about sugar production and use in plants. They have found an online encyclopedia that says the following. “Plants produce glucose via photosynthesis. Glucose is linked together to form the carbohydrate starch.” Your friend is confused, though, because a university website states that “glucose is linked together to form cellulose, the main part of plant cell walls.”

Help your friend fact check their information. In 3-5 sentences, describe how they can determine which website(s) to believe and how these 2 statements are true.

3 answers

To determine which website(s) to believe, your friend should consider the credibility of the sources, looking for peer-reviewed articles or reputable academic institutions. They should check the publication dates and citations to ensure that the information is current and well-supported. Both statements your friend found are true: glucose is indeed linked together to form starch, which serves as an energy storage molecule in plants, while cellulose, which is also made from glucose, forms the structural component of plant cell walls. Therefore, both aspects of glucose utilization highlight different roles that glucose plays in plant biology.

can you make it shorter please

To determine which website(s) to believe, your friend should assess the credibility of the sources, focusing on peer-reviewed articles or reputable institutions. Both statements are true: glucose is linked to form starch for energy storage, while it is also linked to form cellulose, which provides structure to plant cell walls. This illustrates different roles that glucose plays in plants.