Objectives
Students will research science topics including:
- Energy and material flow in photosynthesis
- Cellular organelles in plants
- The effects of light brightness and plant surface area have on plant energy production.
Vocabulary
- Chloroplast and Mitochondria
- Photosynthesis
- Carbon Dioxide, Oxygen, Water, Sugar and Energy
- Light intensity (lux)
- Light sensor
About the Lesson
Your students are asked to play the role of a horticultural engineer on the International Space Station (ISS) who has been researching food production for extended space exploration missions. Students will design and build a space-based greenhouse model in order to conduct a simple experiment using the scientific method while learning about photosynthesis and plant cell structure.
As a result, students will:
- Use the model to investigate how the plant surface area and light brightness affect how fast energy (stored in yams) is produced.
- Will use mathematical processes of:
- Area of a rectangle
- Slope of a line
- Interpreting graphs
- Proportional reasoning