Measuring the rate of photosynthesis.

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Measuring the rate of photosynthesis

Plan

       I am going to investigate the factors that affect the rate of photosynthesis, these factors are:

  • CO2
  • Colour of the light
  • Temperature
  • Distance from the lamp to the pondweed
  • Size of the pondweed
  • Type of pondweed

   We could measure and observe the way these factors affect the pondweed by looking at:

  • The amount of air bubbles formed per minute
  • The distance from the lamp to the pondweed
  • The amount of pondweed
  • The temperature of the water
  • How much water is lost
  • The condition of the pondweed

   I am going to change the different colours of the light by using different pieces of coloured plastic and by doing this I will be observing the amount of air bubbles formed per minute.

Apparatus

  • Lamp
  • Beaker
  • Pondweed
  • Thermometer
  • Funnel
  • Test tube
  • Coloured filters
  • Stop clock

Fair test

            To make this experiment a fair test I am going to keep the following things the same:

  • The type of pondweed
  • The amount of pondweed
  • The distance from the lamp to the pondweed
  • The amount of water
  • The amount of CO2
  • The voltage of the lamp
  • The amount of time used for each piece of coloured plastic

Prediction

                I predict that certain coloured lights will affect the amount of bubbles per minute. This is because the pondweed only likes certain coloured lights, they prefer colours that have longer wave lengths.

For example:

           Red      Orange      Yellow      Green      Blue      Indigo      Violet

Longer wave                                                                                           Shorter wave

  length                                                                                                        length

So pondweed would prefer red, orange or yellow light rather than blue, indigo or violet according to this chart but according to other charts plants prefer the colours red and blue. Pondweed doesn’t like the colour green because it is the same colour as chlorophyll, which affects the pondweed from doing photosynthesis. Even though plants don’t like green light the chart above shows that more plants absorb green light than violet which also makes my prediction wrong because according to this graph green isn't the worst colour light to use while a plant is going trough photosynthesis.

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