chswelchposfall2023 project 4
- Project reviewer
Joined 04 Sep 2023
Project by group chswelchposfall2023
Info
| Explore | From experiences outside of school we know that in order for plants to survive they need water and sunlight. We also know that plants use photosynthesis to make their own food, which means they are autotrophs. However we have discovered many new things about plants in class. For example, we found... |
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| Research Question | The research question that we want to study is "What effect(s) do light and dark have on plants?". The reaserch question was developed becuase we wanted to find how plants react in the light or in the dark. This question fits what we know about the topic because we know that in the light... |
| Predictions | According to my group we all have the same predictions based on the variables we are working with. Since we are working with plants placed in the dark and plant placed in the light, we think that the plants in the light will preform photosynthesis, and plants in the dark will not becuase they... |
| Experimental Design | [Procedure- 1.Prepare the solutions for the two cups 1a.Label the 2 cups - one of them "Light" and the other "Dark" 1b.Add distilled water to each cup about halfway (make sure to have the same amount) 1c.To each cup add about a pinch of baking soda and one drop of soap, then stir the... |
| Conclusion | The claim we can make from our experiment is that in the dark photosynthesis doesn't occur, while in the light photosynthesis does occur. The possible explanations for this is that the gas produced during photosynthesis, which is oxygen, helped the leaf disk under the light float, whereas in the... |
| About this Project | This group did a wonderful job with their experiments. They had excellent descriptions of setup and very strong explanations of results and conclusions. They always answered mentor questions and responded to all communication. -- Mindy Findlater, Liaison |
Updates
It was great to work with you all! You did a great job! :)
Thank you for being a great mentor, goodbye!
Thank you for all you've done! I really appreciate your feedback on our projects and the questions you've asked. Goodbye!
Hello Elizabeth! I just wanted to let you know that we are moving on from Planting Science in my class, so I wanted to tell you thank you so much for everything and thank you for communicating with us. It has been very fun to have you as our mentor. Goodbye for now! :)
Thank you so much for the compliments! We used spinach leaves for the disks in our experiment!
Hi everyone!
I just looked over your study design, and you've done a wonderful job testing the effects of light on photosynthesis! Do you know what type of plant you were using? Thank you for sharing your graphs, they look awesome!
I shared our data table for our experiment above.
Hello Mindy! It is great to get to know you. I also love the ocean and love swimming!
Hi Planting Science teams! My name is Mindy Findlater and I am the scientist liaison working with your teacher and the mentors for you and your classmates. I am a teaching professor in biology at a school in California (UC Merced), and my favorite parts of biology are plants, genetics, and anything related to DNA. Outside of bio, I like exploring California (the ocean is my favorite part), watching hockey and football, and hiking.
It has been great to see you all get started on your projects! Please keep the updates coming, and also remember that you can choose a team name and image and add information to your "Info" section (the part at the top of your Updates page) as you design your projects. We are excited to see what you work on next!
Yes, I think it would continue because both of the different plants use C02 to make photosynthesis.
Yes; I think I would see the same trend because both types of plants use CO2 in Photosynthesis and they both use cellular respiration, which uses CO2.
Yes, I think this is the case as both aquatic and land plants rely on the same sources to grow.
Today in class we discussed if Aquatic Plants produce CO2. We did this by putting Phenol Red in a test tube with water and the Aquatic Plant, then we put one tube in the light and one tube in the dark. After 48 hours, the test tube in the light had produced no CO2, because the Phenol Red did not change color. The test tube in the dark did produce CO2, becasue the Phenol Red turned yellow. We figured out that the test tube in the dark with Phenol Red changed colors because Respiration was produced and CO2 was also produced. The test tube in the light however with Phenol Red did not change colors because Photosynthesis took place, and instead of CO2, oxygen was produced.
Hi everyone,
This sounds like a super interesting experiment! Do you think you would see the same trend if you measured CO2 in a land plant, instead of an aquatic plant?
I just wanted to share our Leaf Disk Data Table
Thank you so much for sharing your data table with me! You all did a great job organizing it in a way that clearly shows your results!
If I could repeat this LAB again I would probably put more leaf disks in each cup to get better results and to see how many are floating in the 25 minute time period. I would also have another cup with vinegar and baking soda to see if the leaf disks reacted faster to that solution.
These are both great suggestions! Mixing vinegar and baking soda is always exciting!
Hello Elizabeth! So far we have done a LAB which was about Investigating Photosynthesis Using a
Leaf Disk Floatation Method. In this LAB we used three differnt types of solutions and 10 leaf disks in each cup of solution. The first cup had normal tap water, the second cup had water and baking soda, and the last one was a breath cup that one memeber from our group blowed into for 60-90 seconds. We then put the cups under the a light source for 25 minutes and recoreded data on how many disks where floating and how many were not each minute. By the end all of the disks were floating in the cups except for the water cup, no disks floated in that cup.
By the end we figured out that the all disks needed Carbon Dioxide to photosynthesize. In the Water Cup there was no or a very small amount of CO2. So, no disks floated.
To check CO2 amounts in the cups, we used the controll Phenol Red. The breath cup with water changed to yellow, which means there was CO2 in the water. However, we also tested in the baking soda and water cup, but the color did not change, if the disks floated shouldn't there be CO2 in the water, and shouldn't the water have changed to yellow?
Hi everyone,
It sounds like you had a very successful lab! It makes a lot of sense that only disks in the breath and the baking soda cup floated, since those treatments had the highest carbon dioxide, and plant cells need carbon dioxide to photosynthesize!
You're right that treatments with floating disks should have carbon dioxide present, which means the water should change color with phenol red. However, it's very common in science for things to go wrong and not understand why. A lot of times, scientists will do many repetitions of the same experiment to reduce the chance of errors! Without seeing your experiment for myself, my best guess is something wasn't quite right with the baking soda-- maybe the baking soda didn't fully dissolve and settled to the bottom, so it didn't react to the phenol red? Maybe the baking soda was older, so it wasn't as potent?
If you could repeat this experiment again, is there anything you would do differently?
Elizabeth
Hi Elizabeth! We are super exctied to work with you too!
Hi everyone!
My name is Elizabeth, and I will be your scientist mentor! I am a PhD candidate at Portland State University in Oregon, and I study how plant pollen and seeds move around on the wind.
When I'm not working on my research, my favorite things to do are knit, go for hikes and identify plants, and hang out with my pug (Pando) and cat (Wishek).
I'm so excited to work with you all Let me know if you have any questions!
Hi! I'm Lennyn and I like playing tennis!
Hi, I am Daxton and I like to swim.