Effect of Light on Ethanol Production in Yeast

Abstract

The sun is an important source of heat and light for many organisms and provides life to many living things. We wanted to see what would happen if you blocked yeast from obtaining light and radiation from the sun. Our experiment tested ethanol production in yeast under different lighting circumstances. We hypothesized that more light exposure would result in a higher amount of ethanol production in yeast due to a heightened metabolic rate due to the radiation from the light. We measured the amount of ethanol produced in a small compartment chamber. Our results showed that there was not a difference.Our hypothesis was not supported showing that there wasn’t a connection between light exposure and the ethanol production. There were a few flaws in our experiment and an alternative hypothesis could be made. Further research needs to be done to obtain a more concrete conclusion.