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Contributor: Hannah Brooks. Lesson ID: 12190
Have you ever watched firefighters in action? How do they get water to a burning building? It doesn't flow by itself; they use pumper trucks. Your cells have chemical pumper trucks to move materials!
These may look like complicated chemical compounds in the image above, but believe it or not, your cells know what they are and use them to energize their trucking system!
In the previous lessons in this Cell Transport series, found under Related Lessons in the right-hand sidebar, you learned about passive transport that allows cells to move materials without the use of cellular energy.
Active transport uses the same cell membrane to transport substances, but it requires energy to do so! As you watch the video below, jot down the answers to these questions:
Watch Active Transport, by Teacher's Pet, to find the answers:
You see that active transport moves substances against the concentration gradient. That is the opposite of passive transport, where molecules are separating out to achieve equal distribution.
It would require a great deal of energy! Active transport in cells operates in the same way: molecules have to be pushed across the cell membrane using energy from adenine triphophate or ATP.
Continue to explore active transport in the Got It? section.
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