| Explore | We previously knew that they give us food, they need water and sunlight to grow, there are many different types, perform photosynthesis, and they can be many colors. In class we have learned that photosynthesis requires light, water, and carbon dioxide. Plants make glucose and oxygen and their mass mainly comes from water. We are interested to learn what the most common color of plants, the roll of carbon in photosynthesis, and the main factors the effect photosynthesis. |
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| Research Question | We want to test how the amount of carbon that plants are exposed to effects photosynthesis. We want to know if more carbon dioxide will make photosynthesis go quicker and last longer. This question fits what we are talking about because carbon dioxide is needed in order to perform photosynthesis and humans are affecting carbon levels so we would like to know the affect of increased carbon dioxide. |
| Predictions | Possible outcomes include that the increased carbon dioxide will cause photosynthesis to happen quicker and last a longer amount of time and vice versa. More carbon could also have no effect, but it could also cause photosynthesis to take longer and not last as long. Also, photosynthesis could take quicker but not last as long. Out of these outcomes we feel that it increased carbon dioxide will cause photosynthesis to happen quicker and last longer because of more carbon is present it has more before it runs out and is readily available so it can begin photosynthesis and last a longer amount of time. |
| Experimental Design | We will fill two cups of water with 3 centimeters of water. One cup will be mixed with 1 teaspoon of baking soda and the other will have two. After the cups are ready we will fill 2 syringes with 10-12 spinach leaf disks of equal size and suck the different solutions in the different syringes so one syringe will have one solution and the other will have the other. We will remove the air from the syringes and make sure all leaves sink. We will then put them in the cups in the solution they belong. We will place both cups under a light and measure the amount that float every minute for 15 minutes. Our control variables are water, light, and the number of spinach leaves from the beginning. The independent variable is the amount of baking soda and the independent is the amount of floating disks per minute of the 15 minutes. We will record our data with a table and eventually a line graph. |
| Conclusion | We can conclude that the elevated carbon levels in the atmosphere will have a positive effect on plants performing photosynthesis because with more carbon plants can do photosynthesis not only quicker but at a quicker rate that lasts longer. This is because plants will simply use up the carbon less quickly if there is more. The carbon is also readily available so the plant can begin photosynthesis quicker. According to our data the cup with more baking soda or carbon dioxide begin photosynthesis sooner and ultimately resulted in more spinach disks floating. This suggests that more carbon dioxide supports photosynthesis greatly and determines how sudden photosynthesis can happen and how efficient it is because it can continue for longer as well. This also proves that the mass of a plant comes from carbon dioxide because as seen through our lab carbon has a great effect on photosynthesis. To further expand our results we could test with even more baking soda to see if there is a such thing as too much carbon dioxide and the effects that would have on photosynthesis. |