IBO International Baccallaureate Programme School: Druga gimnazija Sarajevo

Candidate name: Asja ehaji

BIOLOGY LAB REPORT

TOPIC: OSMOSIS
OUTLINE (TITLE) OF INVESTIGATION/EXPERIMENT: POTATO OSMOSIS AIM: Prove presence of osmosis and its effects in different solutions

(hypertonic and hypotonic) on plant cell

Date: 31th October 2012

Teacher: Elvira Kukuljac

DESIGN ASPECT 1: Theoretical background: For osmosis we can say that is diffusion of water which we can see in water movement through semi-permeable membrane of plant cell. When water is between different concentracion, water is going from hypotonic to hypertonic solution, through semi-permeable membrane. Osmolarity is the measure of solute concentration around where a cell is placed. Osmosis is happening because of the difference of osmolarity inside the cell, in cytoplasm and a solution around the cell, what makes the cell swell. Water is moving through plant with osmosis. Water from root is going up to the leaves by the osmosis. When roots are surrounded by water, they have to accept water to themselves, because water is hypotonic solution and solution inside of plant is hypertonic, so, with osmosis, plant is getting water- which is unavoidable for plant survival. Problem question: The thing we have to deal with is, how potato cells will react in different solutions. What will happen in hypertonic and hypotonic solution? Manipulative variables are NaCl & water and responding variables are potato strips that will change because of MV. Differences between groups: We had 5 types of potatoes. Potato 1 4 spoons of salt, 0 ml of water, potato 2 3 spoons of salt, 50 ml of water, potato 3 2 spoons of salt, 75 ml of water, potato 4 1 spoon of salt, 100 ml of water, potato 5 no salt, 125 ml of water. What do we expect of our experiment? We expect that the potato in hypertonic solution will lose mass, and that the potato in hypotonic solution will gain mass. If a cell is in a hypertonic solution, it means that the environment outside of the cell has a high concentration of solutes, compared to inside the cell. This means that water will exit the cell. And if a cell is in a hypotonic solution, it means that the environment outside of the cell has a less concentration of solutes, compared to inside the cell.

DESIGN ASPECT 2:
CONTROLLED VARIABLES WHY in must be controlled Because potatoes may be frozen or may be too hot for 1. TEMPERATURE experiment. If it was frozen, then, it would take longer for potato to react. If it was too hot, it will react too soon, so we would not have real effect. Because water in Bosnia is full 2. WATER of scale and chlorine. And it could have affect on our experiment. Because we have to control 3. SALT concentration of salt in our experiment. Thats the main reason of doing an experiment. Because we have to have 4. STRIPS samples in same lenght, mass and everything, so we could have real results. We had 5 different situations, and we put salt to make hypotonic or hypertonic solutions. We cut all of the strips in 4 cm. We put destilled water in our experiment. HOW it was controlled We kept potato on room temperature.

DESIGN ASPECT 3: List of materials: Warm destilled water 350ml 7 potatoes cut to five strips (same size) NaCl/Salt 91,6g (five table spoons) 5 glasses 550 ml beaker Scale Ruler Two spoons Three kitchen knives

In our experiment, we defined osmosis through potatoes. By our hypothesis we are going to see that potatoes with hypotonic solution are going to swell, and in hypertonic theyre going to lose mass.

So, our MVs are water and NaCl, and RV is mass of potato stripes. How did we manipulate with water and NaCl? We had 5 situations. From first to fifth, level of salt is increasing. Now, I have to explain our experiment.

First, we had to get all of our materials. Then, cut potatoes in stripes, same size, same thickness.

We took 5 stripes for our experiment.

We had to measure stripes length and mass before experiment.

Then, we filled five cups with different measure of water. In first cup we put 0 ml of water, or we didnt put it at all. Second cup, 50 ml. Third, 75 ml.

Fourth, 100 ml. Fifth, 125 ml. In first cup, with no water, we put 4 spoons of salt. Second, 3 spoons of salt. Third, 2 spoons. Fourth, 1 spoon. In fifth, we didnt put salt at all. In those cups, we put our potato stripes. We left them in solutions for 16 hours. After 16 hours we got our potatoes out. First thing that we noticed was that potato from cup that didnt had water at all had change his colour. Beside colour he shrunk.

After that we noticed that potato from cup which didnt have salt at all had swollen. From that, we see that potato from hypotonic solution had swollen, and one from hypertonic had shrunk. So, that completely confirmed our hypothesis, and we can say that our experiment was successful. VALIDITY MEASURES: Validity measures that we used in our experiment are: ruler, water, scale. We used ruler for measuring length of potato strips, all of them were 4 cm. In our experiment water was very important, because of scale and chlorine we could have different reactions in experiment. Scale had, also, one of the most important roles. We used it for measuring potatoes before and after solutions. We used the same ruler for every potato. Same scale and same water. This experiment was done with small number of samples. We didnt have to use more because, actually, we needed just hypotonic and hypertonic solutions. We did more of it because we needed stronger proof of osmosis.

Initial mass/ g Potato 1 Potato 2 Potato 3 Potato 4 Potato 5 1.94 2.02 2.06 2.00 2.01

Mass after the Initial solution/g length/mm 1.43 1.41 1.43 1.94 2.37 40 40 40 40 40

Length after the solution/mm 35.6 36.6 37.3 40.0 44.3

Concentration of NaCl 10,66% 11,10% 11,32% 10,99% 11,04%

QUALITATIVE DATA: From table, we can conclude that Potato 1 and Potato 3 didnt have same mass at the beginning, but, after the solution they did. Concentration difference between them is 0.66% so, that would be enough to change potato from 1.94g to the same mass of 2.02g after solution, so difference at the beginning is 0.12g but after solution, we have the same mass. Also, we can see that Potato 4 behaves like it is in isotonic solution. Isotonic solution is one where concentration of, in our example, salt and water are the same. We concluded that because Potato number 4 didnt changed length at all. Mass changed, but not for too much. Only for 0.37g.

Percentage of NaCl and mass

5 Lenght and mass of potatoes 4.5 4 3.5 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 Mass before (g) Mass after (g) Lenght before (cm) Lenght after (cm) Potato 1 1.94 1.43 4 3.56 Potato 2 2.02 1.41 4 3.66 Potato 3 2.06 1.43 4 3.73 Potato 4 2 2.37 4 4 Potato 5 2.01 2.37 4 4.43

CONCLUSION AND EVALUATION ASPECT 1: Our experiment completely supports our hypothesis. As we already said, potatoes from hypotonic should swell, and potatoes from hypertonic should shrink. From our graph, we have seen that we had one potato which behaved like it is in isotonic solution.