1. And Then There Was Light
Leaves and Photosynthesis

2. Question Do leaves affect the rate of photosynthesis on a plant?
Hypothesis- If we take two plants with different leaves and test their photosynthesis rates, then the philodendron plant will produce photosynthesis quicker because it has bigger and thicker leaves
We chose this experiment because we wanted to see which plant would photosynthesize faster and wanted to know if leaves had an affect on the process

3. Materials Bean leaf Philodendron leaf 2 Petri dishes 1 beaker of water
1 syringe
1 straw
2 timers

4. Procedures
1. Take two plants, philodendron and a bean plant, two Petri dishes, a syringe, a straw, a beaker of water, and two timers.
2. Pluck a leaf off of each plant, and using the straw, punch four discs out of each leaf.
3. Take the bean plant discs and out them into the syringe, then fill the syringe with water and put the pump back inside.
4. Squirt out water until there are no air bubbles at the top.
5. Slightly pull down the syringe, like a pump, and begin slowly pumping the air bubbles out like a vacuum out of the syringe.
6. The discs will be at the top, the point is to get them to float to the bottom.
7. Don't pull too hard on the syringe.
8. When all four discs are at the bottom, squirt the rest of the water from the syringe.
9. Fill a Petri dish with water up to 0.9 cm depth of water.
10. Take the discs out and push them to the bottom of the Petri dish.
11. Start the timer and wait for each disc to float to the top, recording the time of each one.
12. Repeat the experiment with the philodendron discs as well.
13. Record your results and compare both sets.

5. Results
We found that the bean plant discs floated to the top first, not the philodendron. Our hypothesis was not supported because we predicted the philodendron leave discs would float to the top first because they are stronger and larger than the bean leaves, but they were the last ones to float to the top. Also we found that our hypothesis was proved at the same time it was disproven because we predicted plants with different leaves would produce photosynthesis differently and they did. So we tested two things at the same time without knowing.

6. New Question
Now that we have finished our experiment, it leads us to the next question:
Why do plants with different leaves produce photosynthesis differently