Lesson: Photosynthesis Experiments Biology • Second Year of Secondary School

Students will be able to

• recall the basic reaction of photosynthesis as carbon dioxide + water oxygen + glucose,
• describe how Van Neil carried out experiments on green and purple bacteria to determine oxygen was released by photosynthesis and describe subsequent experiments that confirmed this,
• recall that photosynthesis is split into two cycles: the light cycle and the dark cycle,
• describe the reactions of the dark cycle as being used to fix into carbohydrates,
• describe how Calvin carried out experiments on chlorella algae to determine the role of phosphoglyceraldehyde in photosynthesis.