Lab Report

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Photosynthesis Lab Report (1st lab report)

***See Appendix A for more guidelines on lab report writing*** I. INTRODUCTION

(a) What is photosynthesis? And what are the reactants/products of photosynthesis? (b) What is the importance of photosynthesis? (c) What is the function of light during photosynthesis? What is the visible light spectrum? What are optimal

wavelengths for photosynthesis? Does photosynthesis occur in the absence of light? (d) What is cellular respiration? What are the reactants/products of cellular respiration? (e) What types of organisms perform photosynthesis and cellular respiration, and where does it occur? (f) Explain the relationship between cellular respiration and photosynthesis. (g) At the very end of the introduction, state your hypothis/hypotheses.

II. METHODS

(a) Time of experiments? (b) Materials used (not a list). (c) Explain how production of CO2 was measured in the Elodea experiment. Correlate change in color of phenol

red as CO2 is either being produced or used (yellow – red – pink) (d) Don’t provide a just a list, provide complete sentences.

III. Results All of the tables and figures must include captions describing their content (example: “Table 1: Change in phenol red color due to photosynthesis/respiration …) Figure captions go at the bottom of the figure and table captions go at the top. Description of the results as text.

i. In which tube(s) did photosynthesis take place? ii. In which tube(s) did aerobic respiration take place?

(a) Table of color changes, with legend explaining the table IV. Discussion This section is where you tie it all together by interpreting your results, explaining their significance, and discussing potential weakness of the methods used and experimental design.

(a) Reject or accept hypotheses? Why? (b) Do plants perform photosynthesis or respiration in the dark? Why or why not? (c) What was the purpose of each filter (cellophane/foil)? Which filter produced the most photosynthetic

product? Explain using sources to back up your reasoning. (d) Why did the phenol red solution change color? (e) Discussion on why some effects may have taken longer to be seen. (f) Discussion on possible problems with the methodology used, what could be improved if the experiment were

repeated? (g) Why do most plants have green leaves? (h) Why do photosynthetic pigments absorb only certain wavelengths? (i) How are photosynthesis and cellular respiration complementary processes in a community of organisms?

V. Conclusion

(a) Two sentences: (1) one sentence writing a conclusion for your experiment data, (2) one sentence to put your results into a bigger, larger-scale context.

VI. References List all of the references used to write this report. You should have at least three scientific sources, and these should be referenced in the text of your introduction and discussion.