Practical Report

Transpiration
Yelka Saric

Aim:
To identify and describe factors that affect the rate of transpiration.

Hypothesis:
The lower the water concentration surrounding the filter paper, the faster the transpiration rate
will be fan.

Materials:
Five pieces of filter paper, scales, plastic bag, electric fan, oven, and five Petri dishes.

Method:
1. The five pieces of filter paper were soaked in water and allowed to drain any excess water.
2. The Petri dishes were weighed individually and so were the wet filter papers. Each filter paper
was placed on its own Petri dish and then weighed. One of the filter paper and Petri dishes was
left on the bench to indicate evaporation in room temperature.
3. The second filter paper was put into a zip-lock bag and left on the bench.
4. The third one was placed in a sunny area.
5. The fourth one was put in the oven at 35 degrees.
6. The fifth one was placed next the electric fan.
7. They were all re-weighed after 10 minutes.

Results:

Paper Starting weight End weight Difference

Room temperature 1.255 3.015 +1.76
Sealed Bag 3.485 3.395 -0.09
Sunlight 3.345 3.12 -0.225
Oven 3.145 2.99 -0.155
Fan 3.315 2.455 -0.86

Discussion:
This experiment is designed to prove what conditions are best for transpiration of leaves.
The condition that worked best was the fan. This is because the concentration gradient of the
water was kept at high to low from the paper by the fan rotating the air around the paper.
The condition that worked the slowest was the sealed bag because the concentration of the water
of the paper can only diffusion out to a certain amount until the concentration is pretty much
even in and out of the paper.
The type of day that is expected to have the best results for transpiration and have all the
stomates on the leaf open is a windy and sunny day. The sun light produces heat which uses
kinetic energy to start particles moving in the water of the leaf which helps to evaporate it, and
the wind keeps the concentration gradient from high to low from the leaf.

Conclusion:
In conclusion, this experiment shows the types of conditions leaves are exposed to and which
have a higher rate of transpiration.