| Explore | Plants need water, carbon, and sunlight to stay alive and perform photosynthesis. Plants make glucose to create their own food and energy. We are wondering how changes in the environment affect plants. |
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| Research Question | How do climate change and rising temperatures affect plants and the process of photosynthesis? |
| Predictions | The process of photosynthesis could be hindered or accelerated by the heat. However, we think that heat will slow the process down. We’ve seen that climate change has caused catastrophic damage to plants and the environment, and we think that this might have something to do with photosynthesis. |
| Experimental Design | After removing the oxygen from the spinach leaves, we will place 6 discs in room temperature water mixed with 1 teaspoon of baking soda, and will place 6 discs in water mixed with baking soda that has been microwaved. The water will be microwaved prior to placing the discs in the water. This will hopefully simulate the increased heat added by the effects of climate change. To keep the warm water from cooling, we will wrap it in foil. We will also wrap the room temperature cup in foil, just to keep things consistent. Both cups will be placed under an LED lamp. |
| Conclusion | From the data, we can see that leaves in the hot water floated slower- or in our case, not at all, indicating that they did not perform photosynthesis, or performed photosynthesis very slowly. This shows that either heat added from the effects of climate change causes plants to slow the process of photosynthesis, or has no effect on the process of photosynthesis. This is hard to tell, as we are not able to do a third run of the lab, as we aren’t in school to perform the lab because of the COVID-19 outbreak. There is also a possibility that heat caused the stomata would open in response to the heat of the water, therefore causing them to take in water, thus the reluctance to float. |