Background info on reactionGreen plants absorb light energy using chlorophyll in their leaves.

They use it to react carbon dioxide with water to make a sugar called
glucose. The glucose is used in respiration, or converted into starch
and stored. Oxygen is produced as a by-product.
This process is called photosynthesis. Temperature, carbon dioxide
concentration and light intensity are factors that can limit the rate of
photosynthesis. A plant can and will photosynthesise in the right
conditions; these conditions are the limiting factors. It needs light,
water, temperature and carbon dioxide, as I mentioned earlier. If it
has all of these conditions it will then photosynthesise. The equation
for photosynthesis is:
6CO2 + 6H2O C6H12O6 + 6O2
Carbon dioxide + water glucose + oxygen

Without enough light, a plant cannot

photosynthesise very quickly, even if
there is plenty of water and carbon
dioxide. Increasing the light intensity
will boost the speed of photosynthesis.

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Sometimes photosynthesis is limited by the concentration of

carbon dioxide in the air. Even if there is
plenty of light, a plant cannot photosynthesise if there
insufficient carbon dioxide.

If it gets too cold, the rate of photosynthesis will

decrease. Plants cannot photosynthesise if it gets
too hot, the cells become de-natured.
If you plot the rate of photosynthesis against the levels
of these three limiting factors, you get graphs like the
ones above.

Conclusion-

In my experiment I found that the closer the lamp was to the

pondweed, the more bubbles of oxygen were produced (in a
ratio). My results for 10cm and 20cm away from the pondweed
were almost exactly double, with the exception of 0.6 of a
bubble. Looking at secondary data from other groups I also
concluded that there is an optimum point of light, the point
where the most bubbles will be produced. If it were on a graph I
think it would hit its optimum and level off, however, other
limiting factors like temperature could effect it, because, the
closer you move the lamp the hotter the pondweed will get.
This is shown in my background information page. As another
conclusion, I discovered from other groups that the larger the
surface area is of each leaf, the more sunlight it will take in, and
hence, more bubbles. I found this because the groups with the
larger surface area of leaves had a greater amount of bubbles
being produced.
Evaluation and improvementsWhilst conducting the experiment I had to use a 60watt lamp,
this lamp did produce heat, to counter act this I put it in a water
bath. However, some of the effects of the temperature could
have affected it at 10cm because it was so close. Furthermore,
during the experiment I assumed that all bubbles being
produced were bubbles of O2, some of them could have been
other gases. Carrying on from the bubbles of gas, in the first
test we conducted some of the oxygen produced could have still
been the oxygen of when it was settling in, not the oxygen
produced from photosynthesis.