My experimental purpose was to determine if the color of light affects the amount of oxygen created through the process of photosynthesis by elodea, a type of aquatic plant. I became interested in this idea when I learned of the process of photosynthesis and how all life on earth depends on it. Oxygen produced in the process of photosynthesis is especially important to animals including humans. The information gained from this experiment can be used in green houses
to determine under which color light do plants produce the most oxygen.
This will help astronauts when they want to live on the moon because they
would need to know which plants produce the most oxygen under certain colors
of light.
My first hypothesis is that elodea will produce the most oxygen when living in blue light. My second hypothesis is that elodea will produce the least amount of oxygen when in green light. I base my hypothesis on this statement from the Groiler Encyclopedia,
"Certain wave lengths of red and blue light are the most effective in photosynthesis".
The constants in this study were:
The manipulated variable was the color of light shining upon the elodea plants. The responding variable was the amount of oxygen produced by the elodea plant. To measure the responding variable I will capture the oxygen in a graduated
cylinder and measure it with millimeters.
1. Place 5 strands elodea plant into a 200 ml beaker.
The original purpose of this experiment was to see if the color of light affects the amount of oxygen that the elodea produced. The experimental results after 16 hours were that the red, blue and
white light produced 1 ml of oxygen. The yellow light produced 0.5
ml of oxygen. The green light produced no measurable amount of
oxygen.
My first hypothesis was elodea would produce the most oxygen when under blue light. My second hypothesis was that green light will produced the least oxygen. The results indicate that this hypothesis should be accepted because blue light produced 1 ml of oxygen and green produced no oxygen. Because of the results of this experiment, I wonder if this experiment would be redone if yellow light would produce more oxygen. I also wonder if the white light would produce as much as the blue. If I were to conduct this project again I would shine the light on the
elodea for 48 hours instead of 16 hours.
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