Photosynthesis

OVER ARCHING QUESTIONS: 

• How is all life (except for a few in deep thermal vents) dependent on the Sun?
• What is primary productivity and how does it link the human global economy to photosynthesis?
• Are some plants more "productive" than others?...productive in an economic sense? ...in a physiological sense?
• What are the most important determinants of Photosynthesis? What drives it? ...What are the important components?
• What is the relationship between all the determinants and how do they affect photosynthesis?

STEP ONE OF THE INQUIRY:

• Given what you already know, turn these general questions into a hypothesis with testable predictions.

STEP TWO OF THE INQUIRY:

• Make some accurate, precise and repeatable observations.

Procedures and Directions: 

1. Leaf Disc Protocol.cup.doc
2. Pigment Extraction
3. Use of Spectrometer to test Extracts

STEP THREE OF THE INQUIRY:

• Summarize your observations and relate them to your hypothesis and predictions. Revise your hypothesis if the observations are inconsistent with the original hypothesis.  

 Diagrams, Animations and Further Reading:

• Video on Leaf Disc Protocol
• Supplemental Web Reading on Photosynthesis
• Tuning Fork Resonance on YouTube
• Shorter version
• Resonance and different frequencies on YouTube
• Detailed diagrams of Photosystems
• Molecular Details of PSII
• most of PSII
• just the pigments of PSII
• Dark Reaction Animation
• Lights and Chlorophyll spectra