This week, I started our WIFP Bioenergy unit/project.  It will culminate in a poster session during the first week in January, but first we had to do some remediation.  After some probing, it was abundantly clear that my students had a very weak understanding of photosynthesis.  We have started discussing the process (and respiration) and will continue to work it into our WIFP experiments as well.

Our first endeavor was to learn a little about how a variety of environmental factors affect photosynthesis rate.  We used the WIFP leaf disc lab protocol.  Each pair of students did a control experiment (mostly to learn the technique) followed by another trial where they changed a variable.  Some chose light color, pH of solution, variety of WIFP and others.  Results have been mixed so far...as there are many variables that should be carefully controlled (leaf thickness, disc size, degree of infusion, etc) which makes it difficult to compare data.

At this point, we're ready to do a Evidence-Claim-Reasoning chart on each poster and have students present/discuss their findings.

My plan is to continue with teaching photosynthesis/respiration for the next few weeks.  Students will continue to take care of their "super-bioenergy" cross of plants (growth is questionable, at this point) until we embark on the fermentation lab as a conclusion to the unit/project.

Before students begin work on their Bioenergy-centered projects, I'm asking them to go through the process of growing a generation of Fast Plants.  Students should learn how to take care of their plants, pollination techniques and some general plant biology.  We'll also discuss some background information on Fast Plants, including classification and species diversity.