Floating Leaf Photosynthesis Lab

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Doing experiments and labs with photosynthesis can be a challenge. The floating leaf disk assay technique works well for doing labs. For this experiment you will need baking soda, a plastic syringe, leafs, hole punch, plastic cups, dilute liquid soap, timer and a light source. Prepare 1/8 of a teaspoon of baking soda and 300 ml of water. The baking soda acts as an alternative source of carbon dioxide for photosynthesis. You then add 1 drop of dilute soap to the solution, the soap wets the outside of the leaf allowing the solution to be drawn into the leaf. Avoid having suds if the solution has suds when on the leaf put more bicarbonate into the solution. You then cut ten or more leaf disks for each time you want to do the experiment. The leaf …show more content…

You continue you this until all the disks are floating. This shows photosynthesis because the bicarbonate solution acts as carbon dioxide, the water and the light causes the leaves to turn everything into oxygen which causes them to float to the top, essentially photosynthesis. The independent variables in the lab would be You could expand on this experiment by taking the cup after all of the leaves are floating and sitting it in the dark. When it gets dark the leaves should start falling back to the bottom, showing that without light photosynthesis is not possible. Without the light photosynthesis cannot take place so the leaves do not have the oxygen to float, so all the leaves sink to the bottom of the cup once again. Photosynthesis happens when water is absorbed by the roots of the plants and is carried to the leaves. Carbon dioxide is then taken from air that enters the leaves through the stomata and then travels to the cells that contain chlorophyll. Chlorophyll then converts the energy of the light into a form that can be stored and used when needed as food and energy for the plant. Photosynthesis gives us the oxygen we need to live. Plants then us the carbon dioxide we breathe out. With this we have mutualism with plants which means we benefit each other

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