Michelle Saling, Jenna Filardi, Elliott Yancy, and Meagan Cook Pigment Piggies Michelle Saling, Jenna Filardi, Elliott Yancy, and Meagan Cook

Background Information What Is photosynthesis? Photosynthesis is the process in which plants take energy from the sun and produce sugars. . The green pigments in the plants, chlorophyll, converts unusable solar energy into usable chemical energy. What is the Electromagnetic Spectrum and what does it tell us? The electromagnetic (EM) spectrum is just a name that scientists give a bunch of types of radiation when they want to talk about them as a group. Radiation is energy that travels and spreads out as it goes-- visible light that comes from a lamp in your house and radio waves that come from a radio station are two types of electromagnetic radiation.

Purpose Hypothesis Do different colors of light affect the rate of photosynthesis of a plant? We predict that red and yellow light will increase the rate of photosynthesis, while blue and green light will decrease the rate of photosynthesis because some wavelengths are more similar to the ones the sun emits. Yellow and red light is found in sun light, rather than green and blue light.

Materials 5 60 watt light bulbs 1 already grown Mountain Laurel plant Red Yellow Green Blue Regular 1 already grown Mountain Laurel plant 1 CO2 gas sensor Must have a USB port to connect to the LabPro, or if not, another necessary item is an adapter 1 growth chambers Computer (Windows or Macintosh) Logger Pro 3 Software LabPro Vernier 1 medium-sized cardboard box Stopwatch Duct tape Scissors

Procedure To set up our experiment, we downloadedthe LoggerPro 3 Software on our computer. To set up the growth chamber, we place the CO2 gas sensor into the top of one 250 mL chamber. Once the gas sensor and growth chamber are set up together, attach the LabPro Vernier to your computer.

…continued… There will be one regular light bulb, one red light bulb, one green light bulb, one blue light bulb, and one regular light bulb. The bulb goes in the top of the box. Place the gas sensor and chamber inside of the box. Don’t let the bulb touch the bottle!(see last slide).

…continued… Once these are in place, we placed one leaf from the Mountain Loral plant in each growth chamber.

…continued… Now, all the materials are set up and your workspace should look like the above. While the number is stabilizing, grab your stopwatch and set it for 10 minutes. Ready? Press COLLECT! Once your timer goes off for 10 minutes, press STOP. Repeat steps 1-12 for each growth chamber.

…continued… Once we have collected all the data we will compare each light against the other colors. We are done! The data we have received has proven/is different from our hypothesis. Yellow? Green? Blue? Red? Control? Were we right? Was our hypothesis correct?

Data Graph Key: Purple line- control/clear light Blue line- blue light Time (min) Yellow Green Blue Clear Red 1 443.777 999.235 2615.02 5020.39 3513.84 2 442.116 1099.89 2578.29 5022.12 3512.06 3 443.801 1174.46 2576.45 5020.33 3565.07 4 452.104 1261.05 2588.04 5022.24 3550.91 5 453.04 1331.7 2649.03 5020.17 3543.26 6 453.96 1459.64 2692.31 5020.55 3527.53 7 452.194 1597.12 2712.18 5021.98 3521.63 8 453.284 1730.54 2795.84 5020.32 3527.19 9 453.887 1886.72 2887.1 5022.05 3512.01 10 451.852 1652.19 2975.24 5020.37 3542.9 Graph Key: Purple line- control/clear light Blue line- blue light Green line- green light Red line- red light Yellow line- yellow light

Conclusion Yellow light Only part of our hypothesis was correct. Green light Blue light Red light Control Only part of our hypothesis was correct. The yellow light had the least amount of CO2 in it while the control had the most. This mean that yellow light is more useful for the process of photosynthesis. Red and clear lights slow the rate of photosynthesis. We came to this conclusion because these colors had the most CO2 during the experiment. Rate of photosynthesis (from least successful to most or most CO2 to least)

We show our true pigment. (hahahahahaha) Um. Keep an eye on the light bulb…. Don’t stress Jenna out!