Photo Lab

Question: How does each of the different colored lights (white, orange, green, and blue), at full intensity, affect the plant’s release of carbon dioxide?

Hypothesis: If the plant absorbs a lot of blue light, then there will be more carbon dioxide bubbles it will let out in 30 seconds and 1 minute.

Experimental parameters:

• Dependent variable: light color change
• Independent variable: amount of CO2 bubbles that appeared
• Constants: the time
• Control: no light

	No light	White light	Orange light	Green light	Blue light
30 seconds	0 bubbles	6 bubbles	5 bubbles	1 bubbles	5 bubbles
1 minute (60 sec)	0 bubbles	12 bubbles	9 bubbles	3 bubbles	11 bubbles

Conclusion:

In this lab, I asked the question: “How do different colored lights, at full intensity, affect the amount of carbon dioxide coming out from a plant?” I found out that each of the different colored lights do affect how many carbon dioxide bubbles came out in 30 seconds and 1 minute. It turns out that white light caused the most carbon dioxide to come out. Within 30 seconds, six carbon dioxide bubbles had come out and 12 in a minute, under white light. Blue light came into a close second. 5 bubbles had come out at 30 seconds and 11 at a minute. Orange light also let out 5 bubbles in 30 seconds, but only 9 in a minute. The green light had caused the least carbon dioxide bubbles to come out. Only 1 came out within 30 seconds and 3 in a minute. The data does not support my hypothesis because I thought that the blue light would cause the most bubbles to come out, but the white light had caused more instead.

This lab was done to demonstrate that different colored lights do affect how much carbon dioxide comes out of a plant. From this lab, I learned even more about how plants work, which helps me understand the concept of photosynthesis and cellular respiration better. Based on my experience from this lab, I can predict when the plants might be letting out oxygen or carbon dioxide. This lab has been very helpful.