| Explore | What we learned about plants outside of school is that we need them to breath, they go through photosynthesis, take in oxygen. What I learned in class is that plants need sunlight and water to go through photosynthesis. Questions we have about plants is what happens to plants in the winter. |
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| Research Question | Our research question is How does salt water affect photosynthesis in a spinach plant? We want to test if the salt water changes photosynthesis in a spinach plant. We came up with this question by thinking of different things we can do to try and change photosynthesis. This question fits what we know because we know what plain distilled water does to photosynthesis so we wanted to see what would happen if instead of distilled water we used salt water. |
| Predictions | Will the leaf disks float in saltwater? The controlled variables would be how much salt is put into the cups. How much baking soda is being used. Also is all of the oxygen off of the leaf disks. |
| Experimental Design | Our experimental design is how leaf disks react to salt water. Our plan is putting spinach leaf disks into water after vacuuming the air out with a syringe, making them sink. We leave them under a light, one cup of 12 with salt water and baking soda solution and then another cup of 12 disks with just baking soda solution. If they develop bubbles and float we know they went through photosynthesis. We know this because the light and carbon coming into the disk make oxygen bubbles, causing them to float. The variables were testing is the leaf disks and how they react to the salt. The variables that are kept constant are how the leaf disks react in just baking soda because we have information from two past experiments so we know how it will react. We put the information in a data table and then make it into a line graph. |
| Conclusion | Our claim was that baking soda solution will make the leaf disks float to the top faster then the salt in the baking soda. Possible explanations for our results are that the salt water slowed down the leaf disks floating to the top of the cup where in the baking soda solution cup, all of the leaf disks floated to the top within thirty minutes. Our data that we collected and our reasoning with scientific ideas supported our claim because within 30 minutes we saw as a group that the leaf disks floated faster in the baking soda solution the the salt with baking soda solution. Future experiments we could do are that extend the time we recorded, put more leaf disks in the cup, allow less light, more light, and add morebaking soda solution to both cups. |
| Investigation Theme | POS |
| Grade Level | High School Students (Grades 9,10,11,12) |
| School Name | Arthur L. Johnson High School |
| Session | Fall 2017 |