Project Information
Many students think of the scientific method as a step-by-step process that all scientists follow in order. But real research is rarely so neat and tidy…it is really more of a research cycle or spiral because things you learn in one step can change your ideas about what you’ve already done or about next steps.
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Title | sjalodesfall2017 project 1 |
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Alias | sjalodesfall2017project1 |
Access | public [View public profile] |
Created | 15 Oct 2017 |
Owner | SJA Lodes Fall 2017 |
Explore | Plants make their food from the process of photosynthesis, plants gather nutrients from the soil, plants get their mass from CO2 |
Research Question | How do different lights affect the rate of photosynthesis? We thought of many different questions and by process of elimination and voting, we came to a conclusion to choose a topic that we were all interested in. We know that photosynthesis uses sunlight to produce sugars, therefore we were curious about how well different lights and colors would substitute in the place of sunlight. |
Predictions | The rate of production of glucose in plants could increase, decrease, or remain the same. The different light intensities that are reflected on the plant could be absorbed into the plant faster, therefore increasing the rate of photosynthesis. |
Experimental Design | Our plan consists of placing 12 spinach disks in the cup of the baking soda solution under a blue and green light. We will keep them under the light for 15 minutes and record how many disks float every minute. Our constant consists of putting 12 spinach disks in distilled water under a normal white light for 15 minutes. We will record our data on a graph that is separated into columns of floating and not floating disks for each light. |
Conclusion | We concluded that more disks floated in the blue light than the green light. We believe that the spinach disks floated in the blue light because the disks absorb the blue light waves and the spinach under the green light reflected the green light waves instead of absorbing them. For future experiments, I would consider using colored lights that chlorophyll more often absorbs then reflects, to test how fast each color could affect the rate of photosynthesis. |
Investigation Theme | POS |
Grade Level | High School Students (Grades 9,10,11,12) |
School Name | St Joseph's Academy |
Session | Fall 2017 |