| Explore | Outside of school we know that plants change colors when the seasons change. In class we have discovered that plants gain mass. The questions that interest us are how do they gain mass? Also, how fast do plants do photosynthesis? |
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| Research Question | We want to test how fast plants do photosynthesis in different solutions. The real world relevance of this question is that the energy plants make in photosynthesis is the same energy we humans use. Plants are our main source of energy. |
| Predictions | The possible outcomes are that our two solutions do photosynthesis at the same rate or one or the other does it faster. We predict that the baking soda solution and the salt solution will do photosynthesis at the same rate. We think this because we already know how fast the leaves do photosynthesis in the baking soda solution from our previous lab, and we think the salt solution will be just as fast because plants do have photosynthesis in the ocean. |
| Experimental Design | We will use the baking soda solution and also a salt solution. The control variable is the baking soda cup, the independent variable is the solution, and the dependent variable is the number of leaves that float at the end. We will keep the number of leaves, the time the leaves are in the solutions, and how far the solution cups are from the light all constant. We will record our data by counting the number of floating leaves there are in each solution every minute for 15 minutes. |