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UNIVERSITY OF BUCHAREST
FACULTY OF PHYSICS Guest
2024-11-23 17:54 |
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Conference: Bucharest University Faculty of Physics 2014 Meeting
Section: Physics Education
Title:
Discovering photosynthesis by experiments
Authors:
Cristina IANCU
Affiliation:
1)University of Bucharest, Faculty of Physics, Bucharest-Magurele, Romania
2)Ion Constantinescu School, Dambovita, Romania
E-mail
yancucrystyna@yahoo.com
Keywords:
photosynthesis. accessory pigments, interdisciplinarity, secondary school
Abstract:
Photosynthesis is considered one of most important processes on Earth being studied by numerous scientific disciplines such as biophysics, biochemistry and biology. By photosynthesis the plants are converting the sun light into chemical energy stored in carbohydrate molecules synthesized from carbon dioxide and water. In photosynthesis, the solar energy is captured by the main pigment chlorophyll a and by the so-called accessory pigments represented by carotenoids and chlorophylls b, c, d. Pigment molecules are bound to proteins forming molecular complexes (the so called photosystem centres). The isolation, separation and identification of pigment molecules is studied by various physical and chemical methods. Photosynthesis can be studied in physics and biology classes starting even from secondary school. Because the photosynthesis is a process that cannot be seen with the naked eye it is difficult to be explain and to be understand by the student. In the classical manner of education,the methods used by teachers put the students in front of a large volume of information in order to assimilate the scientific contents. A new alternative solution could be the approach of photosynthesis by an interdisciplinary approach. Interdisciplinarity is a way of organizing the lesson that involves an approach of the specific topics using the specific language of several different disciplines (physics, chemistry and biology). Interdisciplinary formation of research permits: identification of real techniques, development of optimal solutions and techniques, fast implementation of results. At high school, students understand this natural mechanism more easily because they have some knowledge of: Planck’s hypothesis, quantum mechanism, spectral analysis, emission spectra, absorption spectra or energy levels. In this work, we will present in a very elementary way, some methods and physical means used in the study of photosynthesis.
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