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So what did you notice? Did your plant's mass change? Did your soil's mass change? Did your plant grow at all?
Unless your plant died, it probably did grow, and its mass did change. Your soil's mass may have changed too, but probably not very much. OK, now what does this have to do with photosynthesis?
Plants aborb water and nutrients through their roots. For a long time, people thought that all of a plant's nutrition came through the soil. If this was true, that would mean that whatever nutrients the plant would use, the soil would lose, and so the total mass of the soil plus the plant would stay the same! Did you find this to be true? Probably not! From this experiment it became apparent that water was extremely important to a plant AND that somehow the plant was making its own energy! We now know that it makes sugar through the process of photosynthesis ,which utilizes the energy of sunlight to make sugars.
| Let's go back for more experiments! | Go back to the Photosynthesis experiment | Let's go back to the Introductory page |
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