Speeding up the Rate of Photosynthesis

Speeding up the Rate of Photosynthesis

Outline: The aim of my experiment is to find a factor that will speed

up the rate of photosynthesis. Photosynthesis need light to work, so

light therefore should speed up the rate of photosynthesis. I will do

an experiment to see if this works. I will place a piece of cut

pondweed into a beaker containing water and sodium hydrogen carbonate.

A lamp will be shined on to the pondweed and the amount of bubbles

released from the plant will be counted. The lamp will be adjusted to

different distances from the plant to try and obtain different

results.

Light

The equation for photosynthesis is:

Chlorophyll

[IMAGE]Carbon Dioxide + water Glucose + oxygen

Method

First of all I collected all my apparatus. Then I filled both the

beaker and the measuring cylinder with water. The pondweed was put

inside the measuring cylinder, with a paper clip on one end to weigh

it down. I then added sodium hydrogen to the water in the measuring

cylinder to make sure that the amount of CO2 was kept constant through

the experiment. The beaker full of water was used as a heat shield,

which was placed halfway between the bench lamp and the pondweed every

time. Once I had all my apparatus set up I was ready to start the

experiment, I had a results table ready to fill in as the experiment

was being carried out. Once I had finished each distance I repeated it

again to try and get as accurate as results as possible.

Diagram

Apparatus

· Measuring cylinder.

· Stopwatch.

· Beaker of water (Heat shield)

· Beaker.

· Desk lamp.

· One metre ruler stick.

· Pondweed.

· Sodium hydrogen carbonate mixture.

· Water.

Variables

Independent variable: The independent variable is what you are going

to change throughout the experiment; in this case it is the light

intensity.

Dependant variable: The dependant variable is what you measure or