Experiment

Problem:
How will pH affect the rate of respiration?
Hypothesis:
If we vary the pH of the water that the respirometer is submerged in the rate of respiration will
also vary. When we increase the pH the CO2 levels will decrease but when we decrease the pH
the CO2 levels will increase. This happens because the pH of our blood is directly related to the
rate of respiration.
Procedure:
1. Get your materials.
a. 9 respirometers (3 germinated peas, 3 dry peas and beads, 3
beads only)
b. 3 tubs of water (200 mL in each tub)
2. Make one of the tubs of water neutral, one of the tubs basic and one of the tubs
acidic.
3. Put one of each of the respirometers in the neutral water(i.e. 1 germinated pea, 1
dry peas and beads and 1 beads only)
4. Leave the respirometer in the solution for 30 minutes
5. Record data of CO2, using a CO2 monitor, every 5 minutes
6. Repeat steps 3-5 using the acidic water tub
7. Repeat steps 3-5 using the basic water tub
8. Graph data (line graph) and analyze how the acidity of the water affects the rate
of respiration.

Expected Results:
We expect that the lower the pH of the tub, the slower the peas will respire. SO the more basic,
the faster the peas will respire.

Graphs

Blue line is the Germinating Peas

Red line is the Dry Peas and Beads
Orange line is the Beads Only

Holly Bent
pd.5
Conclusion
After analyzing the data, it is clear the both the germinating peas and the dry peas with
beads prefer the warmer temperature of 25C to the cooler 8C. After 30 mins, the corrected
difference of mL of oxygen was .37 for the germinating peas, and .06 for the dry peas with
beans. Whereas in the 8C temperature the germinating peas only produced .14 mL and the dry
peas with beads only produced .05 mL. This is no surprise as there is more kinetic energy at
the higher temperature, which allows for a higher rate of respiration. Also 25C is closer to the
temperature of the natural habitat that the peas are accustomed to. The data also showed that
the germinating peas had a much faster rate of respiration. The germinating peas produced
more oxygen at every time period at both temperatures. Infact it was not even close, even at
the cooler temperature, the germinating peas produced .12 mL where the dry peas and beads
only produce .04 mL (both after 25 minutes). Again no surprise here, because the germinating
peas are alive or active whereas the dry peas are not. Unlike the germinating peas, the dry
peas are not carrying out the process of growth, so they are hardly respiring at all. Finally, the
beads (which are non living) were used along with the dry peas, to account for temperature
change and also to make sure that the volumes of the dry peas with beads versus the
germinating peas, are the same.