How did people find out that plants make their own food? Here you follow the early experiments, learn the overall reaction, and look inside the chloroplast. Then you separate the pigments of a leaf and read the absorption and action spectra.
3 lessons, about 1 h 20 min3 simulations11 problems3 practice questionsPython in every lesson
Created by StemPy LabPriestley, Ingenhousz, Sachs, Engelmann and van Niel built up the picture of photosynthesis. Green plants use light to make carbohydrate from carbon dioxide and water, and the oxygen they release comes from water. The overall reaction is .
Photosynthesis happens in the green parts of a plant, mainly in the mesophyll cells of the leaf, inside chloroplasts. A chloroplast has two membranes, a fluid stroma, and stacks of thylakoids called grana joined by stroma lamellae. The thylakoid membranes trap light and make ATP and NADPH. The stroma makes sugar.
A leaf holds four kinds of pigment: chlorophyll a, chlorophyll b, xanthophylls and carotenoids, which paper chromatography separates. Chlorophyll a absorbs best in the blue and red regions. The action spectrum of photosynthesis follows the absorption spectrum but rises above it where accessory pigments take up light and pass it to chlorophyll a.
Log in to join the discussion.
Loading…
With Standard, you also open 12 more problems, 2 Python labs and 1 extra course. Everything you have used here stays free, always.