| Explore | We know that plants photosynthesize turning CO2 into glucose and oxygen. We also know that the more reactants (CO2) that are available to plants, the more they will be able to do photosynthesis. |
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| Research Question | We want to find out how different types of pollution or the severity of pollution effects plants photosynthetic rate. |
| Predictions | The higher severity of pollution will decrease the rate of which plants photosynthesize. |
| Experimental Design | We will introduce the same amount of oil, and fertilizer into water along with spinach disks and observe in which trial the disks float the fastest. |
| Conclusion | From this experiment, we concluded that oil and fertilizer both inhibited photosynthesis. The spinach disks in the control cup (distilled water) rose to the top the fastest followed by fertilizer, and finally the disks in the oil. We think that the disks in the fertilizer rose before the disks in the oil because they might have had more sunlight which increased the rate of photosynthesis. Another explanation as to why the oil disks were the last to rise to the top is that the oil might have been so thick that it kept the disks below the surface. In the future we could experiment with how much sunlight is blocked by the blue color of the fertilizer. We could decrease the light and maybe alter the concentration of the fertilizer in each cup to test this. |
| Investigation Theme | POS |
| Grade Level | High School Students (Grades 9,10,11,12) |
| School Name | Mountain View High School |
| Session | Fall 2017 |