Measure The Rate Of Photosynthesis

AMDG
THE RATE OF PHOTOSYNTHESIS
The Factor of Carbon Dioxide
I. Introduction
In this lab, the rate of photosynthesis will be measured by manipulating a variable that is needed for the process of photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is the process by which plants use light energy, carbon dioxide, and water to produce oxygen and glucose. This release of products provides the necessary nutrients for all forms of life. In water, leaves, usually float in water due to the gases such as carbon dioxide and oxygen that are within the mesophyll layer of the leaves. But in order to measure the rate of photosynthesis, the gases in the leaves need to be drawn out of the mesophyll. This can be done by creating a vacuum, which will further be explained in the procedure. This will allow us to see the effect of one reactant, carbon dioxide, in
Procedure
See procedure on pages S63-S67 in the CollegeBoard’s AP Biology Investigative Labs: An Inquiry Based Approach. We used this procedure for our experiment with the following modifications:
Step One: We filled five separate containers with 100mL of water. Into each container we placed either 0.5g, 1.0g, 1.5g, 2.0g or 2.5g of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) in order to make 0.5%, 1%, 1.5%, 2% and 2.5% solutions respectively. We labeled each container by its percentage of bicarbonate.
Step 7: We recorded the time at which each leaf rose to the top.
We deleted steps two and eight and applied all other steps to all five of our solutions.

III. Data/Results
Graph 1:
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Table 1: Baseline: Amount of time (minutes:seconds) Taken for 10 spinach leaves in 0% and .2% sodium bicarbonate to rise to the surface

Number of leaves risen to the top
0% sodium bicarbonate solution
.2% sodium bicarbonate solution
1
-
5:05
2
-
5:36
3
-
6:00
4
-
6:10
5
-
6:56
6
-
7:10
7
-
7:15
8
-
8:45
9
-
9:16
10
-
9:50


Graph