| Explore | We know that plants need sunlight for energy, water, and nutrients. Plants also have taken carbon dioxide from the air and release oxygen. Plants tend to be green, but not all the time. We've learned a lot from our experiments and research. Now we know that plants won't go through photosynthesis if they don't receive light or water. The questions that we are interested in are: What color light cannot make a plant go through photosynthesis. Will plants die if they are exposed to too much carbon dioxide? Also how much water is enough for a plant to grow each day? |
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| Research Question | We wanted to study how different colored lights effect photosynthesis. We came up with the question by looking at the graph in our books. The question fits what we know about the topic because we used the color red which has the most absorption compared to yellow which has the shortest absorption. |
| Predictions | Some possible outcomes are that the plant can go through photosynthesis faster or slower depending on the color of the light. Our explanation is that the color plays a big part in the process of photosynthesis. |
| Experimental Design | Our plan is to find out how other lights effect photosynthesis. First, we got three of the same size and kind of cups. We put 0.2% of baking soda solution and 3 drops of soap in each cup. We used soap because they make bubbles and bubbles are filled with carbon dioxide. .Then, we cut out 12 leaf disks for each cup and vacuumed each leaf disk out. After we vacuumed the leaf disks out we put them in each cup. The spinach leaves would take in the carbon dioxide, then go through photosynthesis and produce oxygen during photosynthesis. We then covered each cup with a different colored cellophane. One cup was covered in red cellophane another cup was covered in yellow cellophane and the last cup was covered in clear cellophane and each one was put under regular light. We tested the effects of yellow and red cellophane on photosynthesis.We measured the amount of water, baking soda, and soap. We watched over time and wrote down every two minutes if any disk rose to the surface of the water. By the end of the experiment, we saw that the cup with the red cellophane had the most leaf disks floating. The variables that are kept constant are the spinach leaf disks, water, and the distance from the cup and the light. We recorded our data for 30 minutes and then recorded it in a data table and we also designed a graph. The graph showed how long it took for each leaf disk to rise in each cup. |
| Conclusion | We claimed that the red cellophane caused photosynthesis to occur faster. The possible explanation for our results are the frequency of the red cellophane is longer than the regular light. The data states that more leaf disks were floating in red cellophane than yellow cellophane and regular light. For our future research; we could use different color lights like blue and purple and record data for a longer time. |
| Investigation Theme | POS |
| Grade Level | High School Students (Grades 9,10,11,12) |
| School Name | Arthur L. Johnson High School |
| Session | Fall 2017 |