Scenario 1 - Photosynthetic Rate Experiment Mrs. Toman's sixth grade class is studying photosynthesis and conducted an experiment to measure the change in photosynthetic rate of a basil plant when exposed to white light versus red light. They hypothesized that the photosynthetic rate should decrease under red light relative to the rate under white light (H). Their null hypothesis is that the photosynthetic rate will be the same under both white and red light (H). Her class was divided up into ten groups that repeated the same set of procedures. Each group had a single basil plant with two main stems. An opaque partition was placed between the two branches of the main stem dividing the plant into two halves. The left side branch was placed inside of a light-tight box with a 25 watt lamp with a broad-spectrum white light with an intensity of 500 lumens. The right side branch was placed inside of a light-tight box with a 25 watt lamp with a red filtered light with an intensity of 500 lumens. The lights on both branches were set to a 14:10 light dark cycle and the plant was allowed three days to acclimate to their light conditions. On the fourth day, 10 punches were taken from 10 leaves on each branch to measure the photosynthetic rate for each treatment using the plant punch buoyancy method. The data recorded is the time (in minutes) it took for all 10 discs to rise. Given that photosynthetic pigments are assumed to be equal for all discs and the same number of discs were used in each treatment, the faster the photosynthetic rate, the faster all discs should float. The independent variable is the light type (broad-spectrum white versus narrow spectrum red light) which are categorical. The dependent variable is time difference (in minutes) and is paired since the same plant was measured under both experimental conditions. Thus, the statistical measure is the relative difference in time (photosynthetic rate) between the white light and the red light. Scenario 1 - Class Data for Photosynthetic Rate Experiment Group White light time (minutes) Red light time (minutes) 4.2 6.2 2 7.6 9.1 3 2.9 4.9 4 5.8 6.6 5 4.1 5.9 6 6.2 8.3 7 4.6 6.3 8 6.3 7.1 9 5.9 6.3 10 4.5 5.2