Photosynthesis Lab Report

Abstract: For this lab my group and I wanted to measure the rate of photosynthesis. We did this lab twice, both with slightly different environments so that we could see what changing the factors did to the rate. We found the rate of photosynthesis by taking hole punched pieces of a leaf and placing them inside of a syringe with sodium bicarbonate buffer. We then pulled the plunger part of the syringe back which lets the bicarbonate solution infiltrate the air spaces in the piece of leaf. After the air spaces are completely infiltrated and the leaf discs sank to the bottom of the syringe we then placed the discs and the solution inside of that syringe into the beaker that was holding another 40 ml of bicarbonate solution. Then to test the actual …show more content…
This is because it is the process by which light is turned into energy and used by autotrophs. This is only the first part of the energy cycle, after this process the energy is then transferred to consumers for the use of this energy but less of it because when autotrophs are eaten less energy is given than that is taken by the autotroph. Even though we get less energy by consuming autotrophs this is is still very important because without any photosynthesis we would not have any energy and we probably would not be living because we would not get any nutrients. The process of photosynthesis in the most simple view is understood that what is needed is carbon dioxide, water and sunlight. This is true because these are all of the outside factors that produce the sugars that are the main energy source for autotrophs, but there is much more to this process inside but that is not needed in this discussion because for the experiment that my group and I conducted we only needed the outside factors. Our goal in this experiment was to try and manipulate certain factors of photosynthesis to see what effect it had on the speed of photosynthesis. We are conducted this test because we want to be able to know what will increase the speed or slow it down according to our data. We believe that by changing the amount of bicarbonate in our solution it will in turn increase the speed by which the photosynthesis happens. …show more content…
Although we were wrong that more carbon would equal faster photosynthesis, this evidence provided by our tests do not seem absolutely correct nor very lifelike. I say this because in the real world photosynthesis needs carbon dioxide, water, and light. But our tests suggest that with less carbon the results would be faster photosynthesis, which is not true because photosynthesis requires carbon dioxide. This makes me believe that our test may not have been very reliable and there could have possibly been fault in them resulting in unreliable information. I believe that one of the hindrances on these tests could have possibly been the beaker that we did the test in. During each test the pieces of spinach would get stuck to the beaker and would not float to the unless maneuvered away from the edges by a subtle shake. This leads me to believe that maybe the leaves needed more space to avoid any outside factors causing the leaf to have an inability to show it process. Another thing that is suspect to me is the light, I believe that we might have had the light to far away from the beaker holding the test subjects, causing the leaves to be unable to absorb the energy as well. This makes me believe that our data was skewed and we could gain more accurate data by placing the light closer to the beaker, resulting into more reliable