ohsellefsonposfall2023 project 5
- Project reviewer
Joined 31 Oct 2023
Project by group ohsellefsonposfall2023
Info
| Explore | Photosynthesis is a process through which plants absorb sunlight, triggering a reaction that creates energy plants can use. It does this by converting CO2 to O2, using the carbon to create ATP. Questions: How do plant seeds know to grow in the correct direction? What are some things that cause... |
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| Research Question | Will wood smoke affect the process of photosynthesis? We thought this was a great way to determine how forest fires could harm forest ecosystems. In addition to this, smog and pollutants could similarly block out light, reducing the rate of photosynthesis, and therefore reducing the rate of... |
| Predictions | If the plant is placed in a smoky environment, then photosynthesis will be inhibited. This is because smoke will block some of the light, reducing the rate of photosynthesis. |
| Experimental Design | 1. Cut out 20 spinach disks 2. Fill two cups with 4cm of water, 2-4 drops of soap solution 3. Remove air from spinach disks by placing 10 into a syringe, and fill with 7 mL of water, pushing out excess air. Create a vacuum until all of the spinach disks sink to the bottom 4. Pour the spinach... |
| Conclusion | Smoke inhibits the rate of photosynthesis. Light is necessary for photosynthesis to occur. When light hits the chlorophyll, it changes H20 into 02 gas. The smoke is preventing the light from reaching the chlorophyll, so 02 production decreases indicating that photosynthesis is also inhibited by... |
| About this Project | The members of this team came up with a very cool research question about how smoke affects plants' ability to photosynthesize. While this isn't a novel question, it showed to me that they were thinking about things that have real world consequences and something they were deeply interested in.... |
Updates
goodbye rachel.
Hi,
Wednesday we did our photosynthesis lab. The question we were trying to answer was "How does smoke/fire affect photosynthesis?" Our hypothesis was that smoke would decrease the rate of photosynthesis. Our reasoning was that smoke would decrease the concentration of light reaching the plant, decreasing the rate of photosynthesis. We tested this question by running a spinach disk lab. We had one control cup and another one that was exposed to fire. We placed some paper towels and grill pellets in a glass dish to produce smoke and placed this lit fire under a fish tank (to contain the smoke) with our cup of spinach disks. We then turned on the lights above both of our cups and timed the amount of time it took for the disks to float to the top. We found that the spinach disks exposed to smoke took longer to float to the top than the control group. This means that the presence of smoke inhibits photosynthesis. I will attempt to upload a rough drawing of what our lab setup looked like.
Thank you for this update and for doing such a great job of providing the details of your experiment and how it went to me. I think it is really useful that you all did two treatments in addition to your control sample and helps cement the potential role of smoke n the reduced rate of photosynthesis.
A couple of things to think about:
1. What about smoke exposure could be reducing the rate of photosynthesis? (Tip: Often when scientists get results, they look into what others have found doing similar or related experiments to see how their results fit into a bigger picture, often called a literature review. One way you all could answer this question is through a Google search of how smoke affects photosynthesis)
2. Could there be any other variables or factors that could potentially impact your results? In other words, are there any limitations to the conclusions you can draw from your experiment or help identify if future experiments need to be done to eliminate other potential explanations for the current results? (Note: This is also something scientists have to think about when they do experiments. It helps generate new questions and place the results within a realistic framework and helps avoid making cause and effect conclusions when the evidence only supports a correlation. Hint: The research you do for the first question could also help you answer this one.)
I know this is a lot of information, so if you all have questions about how to decide what sources are reliable when looking things up on the internet or about how to assess whether or not other explanations could be possible, please reach out.
-Jennifer
We ran two levels of this experiment, our first experiment had more smoke than the second experiment. The spinach disks exposed to more smoke took more time to rise to the top than the spinach disks exposed to less smoke, showing that the activity of photosynthesis likely has a direct correlation with the concentration of smoke.
Hi,
My name is Sophia I enjoy reading and going on walks. I help my mom plant her garden every year but usually, the deer eat all of it. My love to grow is strawberries because they taste so much better when grown at home. My favorite subjects are Bio and Art. I don't know what career I want to do yet. Whats your favorite movie?
Hello Sofia!
Nice to meet you virtually. I agree that fruit tastes best the fresher it is. You have so many diverse and cool interests. I think it's normal to not know what you want to do yet. I want to put it out there that there are lots of opportunities to do work that incorporates both art and science. I can send you some resources if you are interested.
My favorite movie... that is a hard one. I think I have more than one if I am being honest. Jurassic Park was a favorite when I was younger. A more recent movie I really liked was called Moxie.
What are you most excited about in starting this photosynthesis experiment?
Sophie,
Here are some cool resources incorporating art and science.
Projects/Activities:
Origami DNA: https://www.yourgenome.org/activities/origami-dna/
Evolution games/art: https://evolution.wisc.edu/educational-resources/
Coloring Science Concepts: https://www.colormephd.org/
Neurons at Play Comic: https://info.cell.com/neurons-at-play
Bone structure through art: https://mysteryscience.com/trending/mystery-1/bones-animal-structures/161?r=54951802
Ultimate List of STEAM Art Projects: https://www.steamsational.com/the-ultimate-list-of-steam-art-projects/
Careers:
https://artsintegration.com/2018/09/01/steam-careers-for-the-21st-century/
An example of a career involving science and art: I knew someone while I was working at UW-Madison who had a degree in biology and in graphic design. Her job was to help create communications between the scientific community and the farming community in Wisconsin. She used her interests in science and art to help people use the best farming practices and create better communication between researchers and the public. This is only one example. There are lots of ways to do science and art for a living.
Hi,
We are starting out the inquiry lab and wanted your thoughts on what we have so far. For a research question, we think something along the lines of "How does smoke change the effectivity of photosynthesis?" This question made me think about forest fires and how other plants are indirectly affected. Katelyn attached a picture of an idea we had for a setup but we don't know how to get the fire in the beaker, what are your thoughts?
Also, I would love to see the resources you talked about in your response to my introduction. Thank you
Hello all!
That is a really cool question you all have focused on. I love your diagram too, it made it so clear to me what you all are thinking about.
I think there are some insights and follow-up questions I can provide. You may not know the answer to the questions I pose and that is ok. I am posing them to get you to start thinking the way scientists do as they design experiments and refine their hypotheses. And remember, when you hit a place where you aren't sure what the answer is use your resources (books, people, etc.) to help figure out your next steps just like you did here.
First, have you looked into what other people have done to answer this question? What did they do and find?
Second, assuming we figure out the fire set-up, how would you plan to measure what impact smoke has on photosynthesis? What length of time do you think you would need to expose the plant to smoke to? How much smoke do you want to expose the plant to? Will you need a control plant that is not exposed to smoke?
Third, in terms of your set-up question: What other ways could you introduce smoke into your experimental design besides plain fire? What about using something slow burning, like incense sticks or charcoal?
I am also going to provide a resource of a experiment that was looking at how cigarette smoke affected plant growth. There may be some useful information here that can give you ideas or help you solve design issues: https://www.scienceprojects.org/effects-of-cigarette-smoke-on-the-growth-of-plants/
I know I just provided A LOT of information here. Please don't hesitate to reach out if you have more questions about anything I said or shared here, or anything else that comes up.
Y'all are doing great!
-Jennifer
P.S. I will post the art&science resources under our intro conversation Sophie.
Hi I'm Katelyn.
My family recently started a garden but we haven't done much with it yet. I love plants and have around 16 that I've grown. My favorite subjects are biology and AP literature. I hope to become a marine biologist or do something else involving biology in the future. My favorite outdoor place would have to be when I went to Yellowstone over the summer. I loved learning about all the different hot springs and geysers.
What's your favorite national park or outdoor place?
Hello Katelyn,
Sounds like you already have a budding interest in plants! Yellowstone is a beautiful place and that is awesome you got to visit it.
I don't know if I can pick a favorite outdoor place or national park. There are so many cool ones out there! So I'll give two examples of places I love to explore. One is the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area; there are so many cool forest types and waterfalls here. Also I really liked the Cedar Breaks National Monument in Utah. There were a lot of cool rock formations and it was so interesting to go from 90s in the valley down to 70s once you got to the park, which was in the mountains.
Hello Jennifer!
Sunflowers are my favorite plants, I love how tall they are and how big the flower heads can get from such a such a small seed. We have done a couple of labs since the start of this project, one of these being the spinach disk lab. During this lab, we learned that CO2 is necessary for photosynthesis. We also did the experiment with elodea and phenol red. During this lab, we found that photosynthesis cannot occur without light and cellular respiration occurs in the dark. We also learned the Krebs cycle. This part is still a little confusing to me, but hopefully, I'll start to understand it better as we continue our investigation.
Sunflowers are an awesome plant!
What was the most interesting observation your group made during the spinach disk experiment?
Whenever I am still unclear about something I ask myself or others more questions. Science is an iterative process, or another way to put it is that often answering one question or hypothesis leads to the creation of new questions informed by the results from the first question.
I'll pose a of question to get your group started thinking about the results for the elodea experiment comparing what happens when energy is created through photosynthesis or cellular respiration based on what you told me here. Why do you think light is necessary for photosynthesis and not for respiration?
Hello
I'm Elise. I like to grow plants, both in my household and in my garden. We have a small apple orchard/vineyard, along with several other fruit and vegetable plants. I have recently been learning about grafting plants. My favorite subject is biology, and I especially like learning how DNA and genes play a role in everyday life. I'm not sure what my career goals are yet. What made you want to go into a scientific career?
I love that you already have so much exposure to plants! Grafting is such a cool process and one of many ways humans have learned to manipulate selection of desired traits in plants.
Genetics (the study of variation in DNA) is my specialty, so please ask me any questions you have about DNA, working in genetics, etc. you may have.
I think it's completely ok you don't know your career goals yet. I'm still figuring mine out
I went into science because I like having a strategic way of thinking about the world around me. I use scientific thinking in my everyday life as well.
Also I feel good using my interest in understanding the natural world around me to help make the planet we all live on a better place.
Hello all!
My name is Jennifer and I am so excited to meet you and talk about science and life in general too! Something to know about me is that I have experience in biology, chemistry, and social science and I like to find the connections within and between different fields of science to help people better use science to solve environmental issues. I love trees and my favorite species is the eastern hemlock because it's always a cool calm place where they are in the forest. I also really like to watch scary movies and go on hikes.
I'm excited to help by posing questions and thoughts. But most importantly to answer questions about photosynthesis, plants (especially trees :D), what it is like being a scientist, or anything else you all are curious about.
What about you all? What is your favorite plant or outdoor place you like to go?