Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

hi. i was wondering which plants are most effective at removing carbon dioxide. i am doing a science project on carbon dioxide and ways to remove carbon dioxide beucase of the green house effect and increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. then i wanted to compare different plants and find out which plants remove more carbon dioxide beucase it would be much more beneficial to have a plant that removes more carbon dioxide that plants that doesn't. thank you.

Hi SW,
Congratulations on finding a very interesting and relevant topic.
Have you thought much about how you will measure the rate of consumption of CO2? There are several different ways that you could approach that problem.

Hi SW,

Here are some websites that may be helpful for your topic.

http://www.seed.slb.com/en/scictr/watch ... /sinks.htm

This site addresses seasons as affecting the amount of carbon dioxide a plant absorbs. There is an excerpt from it below.

[CO2 concentrations decrease during spring and summer. This is because, during the growing season, plants are absorbing more CO2 than they are giving off through respiration. Deciduous trees grow leaves, and seasonal plants such as grasses come to life. During autumn and winter grasses die and these trees become dormant and stop functioning as a CO2 sink. Tropical plants absorb CO2 throughout the year.]

http://www.gdrc.org/oceans/fsheet-02.html

This site talks about oceans as a carbon dioxide sink( absorbing carbon dioxide).

http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20011 ... bsorb.html

This is a really interesting Nasa document about how plants absorb more carbon dioxide when growing after a volcano.

Hope these websites help you ( They may be useful for a reasearch/background portion of your expiriment).

Surekha