Deborah Chen February 3, 2013 AP Biology C Block Investigating Rate of Photosynthesis Photosynthesis is an essential process, in which plants and

other organisms use light energy and convert it into chemical energy. In order to better understand this process, an investigation was carried on with the purpose of finding out what factors affect the rate of photosynthesis in living leaves, and how? In order to do this, the floating leaf disk technique was used. For the first part of this experiment, one 140mL beaker of water and one140mL beaker of 0.2% bicarbonate solution were prepared, with the water used as a control because of the presence of carbon dioxide in the bicarbonate solution. In both beakers, a drop of dilute liquid soap solution was added. Using a hole punch, 12 leaf disks were cut for each beaker and were placed into syringe barrels. Small volumes of bicarbonate solution and water were pulled into each syringe. To create a vacuum, air was drawn out of the leaf. The disks were then placed in the appropriate beaker, with the beaker placed under a light. In the second part of this experiment, the purpose was to observe the effect of rate of photosynthesis under different environmental conditions. In order to do this, we repeated part one, except with just the beaker of bicarbonate solution which was placed under a bright light. The time it took for half of the leaf disks to float to the surface was recorded. The results of this experiment can be seen in Figure 1. However, although it seems as if some data is missing, we stopped recording after half the number of leaf disks placed in the beakers were floating. Photosynthesis did not occur in the beaker containing water, as photosynthesis requires carbon dioxide as a reactant and water does not contain carbon dioxide. Photosynthesis occurred the most in the beaker containing bicarbonate solution that was placed under the bright light, as it took much longer for the

other bicarbonate solution beaker to reach 50% of its leaf disks. It can be concluded that if placed in a brighter setting, photosynthesis will occur more.

Figure 1