3.1.7 water

Question 1

what are the 5 properties of water?

Answer 1

• metabolite.
• solvent.
• relatively high specific heat capacity.
• relatively high latent heat of vaporisation.
• strong cohesion.

Question 2

what’s the importance of water being a metabolite?

Answer 2

enables chemical reactions to occur like condensation reactions, hydrolysis, photosynthesis.

Question 3

what’s the importance of water being a solvent?

Answer 3

enables transport in blood and diffusion in and out of cells.

Question 4

what’s the importance of water having a relatively high specific heat capacity?

Answer 4

• buffers temperature change.
• smaller temperature range in aquatic environments.

Question 5

what’s the importance of water having a relatively high latent heat of vapourisation?

Answer 5

• used in thermoregulation.
• evaporation of sweat has a cooling effect.

Question 6

what’s the importance of water having strong cohesion?

Answer 6

• water moves in an unbroken column/stream e.g. in the xylem.
• produces surface tension at air-water interface = allows animals to move over surface of water.