Photosynthesis: a peak into the plant kitchen
25th November 2021
This week the Year 8 students have been learning about photosynthesis – a process by which green plants make their food for energy and growth. The class discussed the main requirements needed for this process to occur and the factors that may affect its efficiency.
Interestingly, children wanted to know what would really happen in the absence of one of the factors affecting this process. They talked through the feasibility of testing these and settled on testing for the effect of light on photosynthesis, quickly throwing themselves into plans for how to identify the variables and how to test and evaluate the results.
The conclusion was that plants need sunlight to make simple sugars which are later converted into starch. A positive result for starch showed the leaf was able to photosynthesise its food and a negative result on the leaf covered with tape and white patches on a variegated leaf showed no photosynthesis occurred.
Here’s a sneak peak of how they conducted their experiment...
