Background Information

Sunflower seeds were first from the Americas. These seeds pack and contain many essential
nutrients and are considered storehouses. Some examples of these nutrients that are vital to the human
body include zinc and iron. In todays society, the most common form of sunflower seeds are in the form
of sunflower oil. However, why does this all matter? Why do we care if these sunflower seeds can
undergo cellular respiration and sustain life? We know that all seeds are cells and so they go through
cellular respiration in order to maintain homeostasis and life. Also, sunflower seeds are dormant which
means that they do not migrate or move, but are fixed in one position. With being dormant, these seeds
provide a unique adaptation to their environment able to germinate and grow in a fixed position. These
periods of dormancy allow for the seed to wait for the optimal environmental conditions in order to fully
grow. When germination occurs, the respiration rates increase tenfold so that they can account for and
make up for the necessary materials.

Results

Analysis
From these data tables, my group is able to draw many different patterns and analyses. When we
look at the graphs for the Sunflower seeds at room temperature, the germinating seeds seemed to have a
higher rate of Oxygen Consumption/Respiration rate that that of the dry seeds + the glass beads. When
looking at the graphs for the respirometers for the seeds at 10*C, there was a greater rate of oxygen
consumption/respiration with the germinating seeds rather than the dry seeds + glass beads. When our
group looked at the spreadsheet with the other corrected changes in volume for the sunflower seeds, there
seemed to be a rather similar data set for the respirometers at room temperature with the germinating
seeds. Then when we look at the dry seeds with the glass beads, all the groups data sets were slowly
decreasing in their corrected change in volume. However, when we look at the data for the respirometers
at 10*C, the germinating seeds seems to have a conclusive trend of increasing and that occurs in all
groups. However, when we reach to the dry seeds with the glass beads at 10*C, there seems to be
confusion between groups. Our groups corrected change in volume increased from .02 to .08. On the
other hand, Group 1s change in volume fluctuated as it went from -.04 to .05 back to .01. With group 3,
there corrected change in volume constantly decreased while the other groups decreased. This may have
occurred due to the fact that some of the food coloring may have leaked and not been put in properly, or
some groups may have read their numbers wrong. Also, this may have occurred because a group may
have forgotten to keep their ice bath constantly at 10*C and the temperature constantly fluctuated.

Procedure
1. Obtain all materials; the respirometers will be already available and assembled.
2. In all respirometers, place an absorbent cotton ball at the bottom, drop three drops of potassium
hydroxide solution, and then put a wad of nonabsorbent cotton on top of the absorbent cotton with
KOH. Do this for all 6 respirometers.
3. To assemble the first kind of respirometer, first find the volume of 20 sunflower seeds that are
germinating using the water displacement technique with a graduated cylinder. Record this volume as
it will be used in assembling the other respirometers. Put the 20 sunflower seeds into the respirometer.
Repeat this with another respirometer.
4. To assemble the second kind of respirometer, take 20 non-germinating (dry) sunflower seeds and use
the same water displacement technique to find the volume. Next, add glass beads to make the volume
of the dry seeds and the beads to equal the volume of the germinating seeds in step 3. Put both seeds
and beads into the respirometer. Repeat this twice with two respirometers.
5. To assemble the third kind of respirometer, use the water displacement technique to determine how
many glass beads are needed to match the volume of the germinating seeds from step 3. Then, put the
glass beads into the respirometer.
6. Place the rubber stopper with a calibrated pipet on top of each respirometer, making sure each fits
snugly and without any leaks.
7. Place one of each type of respirometer into the room temperature water bath, and do the same for the
10C water bath, so that the pipets rest across the tape around the tub and that the end of the
respirometer containing the seeds and beads are immersed in water. Start your timer now.
8. Once the timer hits 7 minutes, put a drop of colored dye on the tip of each pipet, and immerse all
respirometers completely into the water.
9. In regular 3 minute intervals starting from 7:00 (0 minutes on the lab data sheet), record the required
data into the data table except for the corrected V. Continue to record data until the 22 minute mark
on your stopwatch (draw in an additional line for data on your lab sheet).
10. Calculate corrected V = V (for respirometer 1 or 2) V of respirometer 3.

Experimental Design
Our control group for this experiment is respirometer 3, which only contains the glass beads and
no sunflower seeds that undergo cellular respiration. This respirometer is also used to calculate the
corrected V since no oxygen is actually consumed and the movement of water up the pipette is not
influenced in any way.
1. Materials: Room temperature water bath, cold water bath, container of ice, paper, water, germinating
sunflower seeds, non-germinating sunflower seeds, glass beads, respirometers, graduated tube,
absorbent cotton balls, nonabsorbent cotton, 15% potassium hydroxide solution, dropping pipets,
forceps, thermometers, stopwatch, calculators.
2. Description and Design
a. The data that will be collected in this experiment are the volume of the pipet, the V, and the
corrected V for all six respirometers.
b. Only one trial will be completed for all six respirometers.
c. The temperature will be controlled by either adding ice cubes to maintain a constant 10C and by
keeping room temperature constant. Additionally, the number of molecules of gas will be the
same since the volumes of cotton, seeds, and beads will be around the same in each respirometer.
d. The data will be interpreted by using the corrected V as a measurement of how quick the rate of
cellular respiration is. A greater V will show that more cellular respiration takes place while a
lower V shows that less respiration takes place.
e. Four graphs will be made, using the room temperature respirometers containing germinating
seeds and dry seeds + beads as well as the 10C respirometers containing germinating seeds and
dry seeds + beads.
3. The pipets are very sharp, so gloves will be worn. Lab coats and safety goggles/glasses will also be
worn to protect from the potassium hydroxide.

Conclusion
Based on our groups data, we reject our first hypothesis that more cellular respiration would
occur at lower temperatures, but accept our second hypothesis that germinating seeds will undergo more
cellular respiration than non-germinating seeds. Our data shows a very strong correlation between colder
temperatures and less respiration; for example, the corrected V of germinating seeds at 10C is only 0.17
while the corrected V of germinating seeds at room temperature is 0.25. This data disproves our
hypothesis that more cellular respiration would take place at lower temperatures. However, when we look
at the percent changes of our data, we have a different conclusion/result. For the corrected V for the
germinating seeds at 10*C, the percent change is 325%. It increased from .04 to .17 and to calculate that,
we did .17-.04/.04. Likewise, when we look at the correct V for the germinating seeds at room
temperature, the percent change is 316.67%. It increased from .06 to .25 and to calculate that, we did .
25-.06/.06. Based on the percent changes however, we do support our hypothesis. Then, when we look at
the class averages for sunflower seeds, the corrected V for the germinating seeds at 10*C ended up at .
13 while the corrected V for the germinating seeds at room temperature was .24. With this, we would
say that this data would reject our hypothesis. However, when we take a closer look at the percent
changes for the class averages, for the germinating seeds at room temperature, it is 380% while the
germinating seeds at 10*C have a percent change of 550% which then supports our hypothesis. Our data
does support our second hypothesis that germinating seeds have more respiratory actions than nongerminating seeds. In our data can be seen a dramatic difference between germinating and dry seeds, with
the V of germinating seeds maxing out at 0.25 while the V of non-germinating seeds maxes out at only
0.08. Errors might have taken place while we carried out the experiment. For one, the volumes for some
respirometers might be off due to us not using the meniscus to measure the volume. Another source of
error would be the difference in amount of dye placed on each pipet. Some pipets had large amounts of
dye while others had little. Furthermore, we did not keep a constant eye on the ice bath, and the
temperature rose to 11 degrees in one instance. To further our research, we could do multiple trials and
compare our results with groups who did different seeds, such as corn or peas. The significance of this
research to sunflower seeds is influential; through this experimentation we gather key facts about
sunflower seeds: that they undergo cellular respiration even when they are not germinating, and that their
activity is limited by the temperature around them.