Photosynthesis and the Vital Role of Chlorophyll

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Our world is filled with beautiful plants of all different colours. Green is clearly the most prominent colour, and we know that this is due to the presence of chlorophyll. We have also learnt that photosynthesis is a vital process that occurs in order to create glucose and oxygen, by transforming carbon dioxide and water in the presence of light energy. Chlorophyll is vital for this process due to the fact that the light energy which allows for this process to occur is trapped in the chlorophyll molecule. These molecules are situated in the chloroplasts in the mesophyll layer of leaves, but most prominently in the palisade mesophyll which is the main photosynthesising tissue. My interest was sparked when I started to think about the role this so called vital chlorophyll plays and whether it is really necessary for photosynthesis to occur to occur in plants. While thinking about this I noticed that chlorophyll leads to the green colour in plants as green is reflected by the chloroplast cells and red and blue absorbed, therefore plants which are green and white obviously will not have chlorophyll in the parts which are white, as these parts lack the green colour, meaning that photosynthesis is not supposed to occur in these areas. It is also vital to remember that leaves which are fully red still do photosynthesise but the green pigment is just masked by carotenoids, which is why only variegated leaves may be used. The most basic way to actually test this is to look along the lines of leaves which are variegated, meaning they are white and green.

Aim - In this investigation I would like to test whether chlorophyll is necessary for photosynthesis to occur, by testing for the presence of starch in a photosynthesising variegated leaf...

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