Content:
The photosynthesis lab we executed dealt with light energy and wavelengths. Photosynthesis uses the energy from sunlight to produce energy in the forms of organic molecules such as glucose. However, in this process the different colored lights affect the rate of photosynthesis. This is due to the different wavelengths and different pigments. In our experiment we used four different colors; red, blue, yellow, and clear (our control).
Background Information:
Our lab has to deal with how the different pigments and wave lengths effect photosynthesis. This has to deal with how much energy each wavelength and pigment carry. A high energy wavelength for example is violet. On the other hand, a low energy wavelength is red. In this experiment we were trying to learn which color would speed up photosynthesis. Then, the hypothesis we created was that yellow was going to speed up photosynthesis while blue was going to slow down the reaction.
Materials:
* Four big plastic syringes
* Four glass beakers
* Two lights
* Distilled Water
* Red, yellow, and blue food coloring
* Spinach
* Hole punch
Methods:
First, fill each beaker with 200ml of distilled water. Then, put two drops of each food coloring into three beakers while leaving one clear to be the control. Then, hole punch twenty pieces of spinach for each syringe. Fill each syringe with distilled water, then suck the air out of the pieces of spinach. After, place the four beakers under one light and drop the pieces of spinach into the beakers. Then, thirty minutes into the experiment place a second light over the beakers. At fifty minutes turn the lights off in the room and record how many pieces of spinach rise to the top every five minutes for sixty minutes. Record your data on a piece of paper.
Results:
We did have very much activity until we were thirty minutes into the experiment. This was a letdown for us. However we started to notice more activity at fifty minutes....