Article 4: Psychedelic Space Plants
Did you ever wonder why plants are green and not red?
If plants were to absorb green and reflect red we would have magenta colored palm trees. This article from Discovery Magazine discusses how plants evolved chlorophyll to absorb red and blue rays from the sun and reflect the green. The ozone and oxygen in the earth's atmosphere absorb the blue and ultraviolet leaving more red to pass through. What happens if there is a sun cooler or hotter than the earth's sun? Read the article and find out how plants may have different colors depending on the rays they absorb and the rays they reflect.
This article is good for a class discussion to see what color plants we could have if we had extra-solar planets.
Saarman, E. (2007, April 11). Psychedelic Space Plants.Discover Magazine, Retrieved from http://discovermagazine.com/2007/apr/space-plants/?searchterm=photosynthesis
I like the opening question. This is a good opener for a class discussion and I believe this will engage a lot of your students and will lead to an interesting discussion. I am actually now thinking about what color plants we could have had if we had extra solar planets!
ReplyDeleteMay,
ReplyDeleteI must say, the title of this post caught my eye more that anything! What a unique topic! This article and subsequent discussion will provide students with an opportunity to think beyond their own world, to be creative and imagine life a little bit differently than what they might know. Most importantly though, it's grounded in fact and informative, which is what you would surely want in a science class. Well done!