Respiration in Peas Lab Essay Example

as they grow, they begin to rely more on photosynthesis and less on respiration All peas that are used will have been left to germinate for the same amount of time Wait time before Labiates begins electing data Time between equilibration and selecting 'play on Labiates for data collection may vary. Data may be collected for different time periods in CO production.

During the one-minute equilibration period, the Labiates will be set up so that data collection begins as close to the end of the equilibration period as possible. Materials 5 Labiates data collection programs 5 CO gas sensors 5 250 ml respiration chambers (bottles) Paper towels 125 germinating peas A few handfuls of glass beads Timer 5 plastic tubs Ice cubes One water bath Thermometer measuring degrees Fahrenheit Methods 1.

A total of 125 germinating peas will be obtained, being wary of size. I will attempt to pick peas that are all off similar size. 2.

I will separate the germinating peas into 5 groups of 25 and mass one group using water displacement.

Then I will obtain this same mass of glass beads and place these in one group, labeling each group 1 through 6. 3. Preparing the peas: a. Cold peas: I.

One group of 25 germinating peas will be soaked in a plastic tub filled with ice water for 15 minutes 1 . The temperature of the water will be recorded in degrees Fahrenheit in Table 1. It. One group of 25 germinating peas will be soaked in cold AP water for 15 minutes 1 .

The temperature of the water will be recorded in I.

One group of 25 germinating

peas will be soaked in a hot water bath for 15 minutes 1. The temperature of this water will be recorded in degrees Fahrenheit in Table 1. It.

One group of 25 germinating peas will be soaked in warm tap water for 15 minutes 1. The temperature of the water will be recorded in degrees Fahrenheit in Table 1. C. Room temperature peas: I. One group of 25 germinating peas will be soaked in a tub filled with room temperature water for 15 minutes 1. The temperature of this water will be recorded in degrees Fahrenheit in Table 1.

T.

The glass beads will be soaked in a tub filled with room temperature water for 15 minutes 1 . The temperature of this water will be recorded in degrees Fahrenheit in Table 1 . 4. I will locate the switch on the CO gas sensor to the low setting 010,000 parts per million [pump]) 5.

Next, I will connect the gas sensor into one of the ports in the top of the Labiates 6. Using a stylus, the Labiates will be turned on. New will be selected from the file menu to start a new data collection 7. 25 room-temperature peas will be blotted dry between paper towels 8.

The peas will be placed in the respiration chamber 9.

The CO gas sensor will be placed snugly into the top of the respiration chamber 10. Next, I will wait one minute for the peas to equilibrate (use a timer to ensure accurate equilibration time) a. During this equilibration period, data collection will be set up I. Select the meter icon on the Labiates screen using

the stylus it. Sensor and then Data collection will be selected iii. The collection length should be set to 300 seconds with a rate of 2 samples per second 11.

After the minute allocated for equilibration is up, I will begin data collection by selecting the graph icon at the top of the screen and selecting Play. 12. When the data collection has finished, I will carefully remove the CO gas sensor from the respiration chamber and will fan the opening of the chamber for one minute 13. The peas will be then be returned to the teacher 14. Next, I will calculate a linear regression in order to find the rate of respiration: a. Curve fit will be chosen from the analyze menu as the graph form data collection is displayed b.

Linear for fit equation will be selected.

Statistics will be displayed in the form Statistics will be displayed in the form y=mix+b where x is the time in seconds, y is the CO concentration in pump, m is the rate of respiration, and b is the -intercept. 15. Rate of respiration will be recorded in Table 1 .

16. Steps 4 through 15 will be repeated twice for a total of three trials per group. 17. Steps 4 through 16 will be repeated with each group of peas and glass beads. Figure 1 : Connecting CO gas sensors to Labiates Table 1 : CO production of germinating peas at varying temperatures Note: due to time constraints, groups 5 and 6 were not measured.

Peas or glass beads? Temperature of water in degrees Celsius (+1- 1) Rate of respiration: CO production in pump/s

(+1- pump) Average rate of respiration (+1- 100 pump) Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3 Trial 1 Tonal 2 Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Group 4 Group 5 Group 6 Trial 3 Table 2: Averaged CO production of germinating peas at varying temperatures Peas or glass beads? Average temperature of water in degrees Celsius (+1- 1) Average rate of respiration: CO production in pump/s (+1- 100 pump) Group 1 peas 41 4. 304 Group 2 peas 8 3. 857 Group 3 peas 19 3. 287 Group 4 Glass beads 19 0. 58 The effect of temperature on CO gas production in germinating peas is that as temperature increases, the amount of CO produced from germinating peas increases.

This was correctly predicted in the hypothesis. However, CO also increased when there was a decrease in temperature. As shown in Table 2, of the three ranges that tested germinating peas, the room temperature peas produced the least CO. Peas that had been soaked in water at a temperature of 40 degrees Celsius yielded an average rate of respiration of 4.

304 CO pump per second, while of respiration of 3. 857 CO pump per second.

The peas that had been soaked in room temperature water, on the other hand, respired at a rate of 3. 287 pump per second. This disproves the original prediction that a decrease in temperature slows cellular respiration in germinating peas.

This decrease in CO production may be due to a variety of reasons. The fact that the group soaked in warm water respired the most is logical. Enzymes that catalyst reactions inside the cells of the peas have an optimum temperature,

where activity increases until a certain temperature, where, if exceeded, enzymes that are required for the metabolic processes of the cell are denatured (enzymes').

Additionally, molecules generally tend to move faster at higher temperatures, which would have supported an increase in enzymatic activity when the peas had been soaked in warm water (Bananas).

A higher amount of carbon dioxide respired from the peas suggests that the optimal temperature had not been reparsed- the cells of the peas were still active and respiring. The increase in CO production implies that the optimum temperature for the cells of the peas tends to be warmer. The fact that the peas soaked in water at 8 degrees Celsius respired on average at a rate of 0. 7 pump/s faster than the peas soaked in room temperature water, however, does not support the theory that an increase in temperature caused an increase in CO production, nor does it support the hypothesis. This may be due to a variety of reasons.

Firstly, as shown in Table 1, both the room temperature peas and the cold ease tended to be much more inconsistent in CO production when compared to the warm peas. Each trial of the cold peas decreased significantly from the trial before it, yielding a difference of 5. 07 pump/s between the trial 1 and trial 3.

Room temperature peas also showed inconsistent results- trial 1 indicated a rate of 4. 144 pump/s, while the rate of trial 3 was 3. 116 pump/s less.

The control group of glass beads, on the other hand, was much more consistent. Very little CO was produced from the control group, as expected. The

unexplained decrease in CO production, combined tit a much more consistent control group, suggests that there were issues with reliability in the execution of the experiment. EVALUATION AND IMPROVEMENTS There are a number of improvements that could be made in the experiment that could improve reliability of the data.

The main weakness in this experiment was lack of time. The peas were left for about 72 hours to germinate, which was an adequate amount of time, however there was not enough time during class to test all five groups of germinating peas as well as a control group.

Instead, three groups were tested at a range of temperatures, and one control group was tried at room hat I would have much more time to test all the temperatures that I had planned to. This lack of time may have decreased reliability of the results in other ways.

While the respiration chambers were being set up, my lab partner and I were hurried. This caused us to knock over the respiration chambers a few times as data was being collected, which may have skewed results. An overall longer amount of time to _ the experiment would have allowed more time to complete additional trials, as well. As shown in Table 1, raw data, there were major variations in rate of respiration between trials.

For example, in Group 2, Trial 1 yielded a rate of 6. 38 pump/s, while Trial 2 yielded a rate of 1. 268 pump/s.

These fluctuations may have been caused by changing temperatures in the classroom, as volume of a gas is greatly affected by the surrounding air temperature.

One other major weakness

of the experiment was that the one-minute equilibration period that was allowed while the data collection software was being set up did not happen as planned. This equilibration period was supposed to allow the peas some time to begin respiring at a steady rate before data collection began. The Labiates that we chose was not receiving data from the fourth probe, so we had to find another Labiates, plug it in again, and prepare it to collect data.

This caused the equilibration period during the first experimental trial to last four minutes more than the originally planned one minute. While this may not have greatly affected the rate of respiration, it would have caused data collection to begin when much more CO had been given time to accumulate in the respiration chamber.

This is shown in comparing Figure 2 (graph for trial one) and Figure 3 (graph for trial 2). In trial one, for example, the intercept with the y-axis for probe one was 3031 pump, while the y- intercept for probe two was 1867 pump.