Pinto Bean Seedlings Experiment

1354 Words6 Pages

Hypothesis: If one-day pinto bean seedlings are soaked in a water solution, 1% NaCl solution, and 3% NaCl solution, the seedlings exposed to higher sodium concentrations will have decreased cellular respiration rates. Treatments: This experiment involved three treatments and a control. The goal of the experiment was to see how different levels of NaCl affect the rates of cellular respiration in day-old pinto bean seedlings. In this experiment the rate of cellular respiration was measured by the amount of CO2 in ppm per gram of substance produced by a given treatment group or the control over the course of ten minutes. CO2 levels were measured using a CO2 sensor. The sensor was given time to warm up then placed in a glass chamber with a sample from one of the treatment groups or a sample of control. CO2 levels in ppm were collected every four seconds for ten minutes by the sensor. The data was divided by the weight of the sample used to generate it, to give the respiration rate per gram of sample. The data was then graphed and the slope of the line of best fit for the data points was found. The slope of the line of best fit for each treatment was determined and represented …show more content…

The line of best fit gives the respiration rate of day-old seedlings as the concentration of NaCl they are exposed to increases. As NaCl Concentration increases the rate of cellular respiration decreases by .108 ppm CO2/g per second. This overall decrease throughout the data further supports our hypothesis. Discusion: The data collected in the experiment does support our hypothesis. By examining the data as a whole a trend of decreased cellular respiration in seedlings soaked in solutions with increased NaCl concentrations. The water treatment which had a 0% NaCl concentration had a higher respiration rate than the seedlings soaked in the 3% NaCl concentration. This overall trend of the data supports the