| Explore | Some background information we know about photosynthesis is that chlorophyll is the pigment in plants that makes leaves green and is necessary for photosynthesis. We also know that plants are autotrophs which means they create their own food. |
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| Research Question | If we add salt or sugar to baking soda water, will that make the plants perform photosynthesis quicker? |
| Predictions | We predict that the normal baking soda water will still make the leaves perform photosynthesis the fastest when we test how many plant disks rise per minute. |
| Experimental Design | Our plan is to set up 3 different cups with the same amount of water (3 cm) in every cup. In the first cup we will fill it with water and 1 tablespoon of baking soda as the control variable. We will then make the same baking soda and water solution for the other 2 cups. After that we will add 1 tablespoon of salt to our 2nd cup and 1 tablespoon of sugar to our very last test. After we have our three cups set up, we will make fifteen plant disks by hole punching spinach leaves. Next we will use syringes to extract the air out of them, therefore when we put them in the water solutions we can visually see when they are photosynthesizing because they will start to float since when plants photosynthesize plants produce oxygen which will make them float. After we have the deoxygenated plant disks, we will add 5 disks to every cup and put a lamp 8 inches away from the top of he cup to ensure the light is hitting the plant disks at the same angle. Next we will set up a timer and record how many floating disks we have every minute to see which water solution causes the plant disks to photosynthesize at the fastest rate. |