Investigating the Effects of Varying Sugar Concentration on the Amount of Osmotic Activity Between the Solution and Potato Tubes

Investigating the Effects of Varying Sugar Concentration on the Amount of Osmotic Activity Between the Solution and Potato Tubes

Hypothesis: Osmosis is defined as the net movement of water molecules

from a region in which they are highly concentrated to a region in

which they are less concentrated. This movement takes place across a

partially permeable membrane e.g. a cell wall. This means that the

cell wall will let smaller molecules such as water through but does

not allow bigger molecules to pass through. The molecules will

continue to diffuse until the area in which the molecules are found

reaches a state of equilibrium, in our case (when both the potato cell

and the solution have the same amount of sugar solution

concentration,)

Method: To make it a fair test certain aspects of the experiment had

to been kept the same while only one variable was changed. The

variable was the concentration of the sugar solution. This gives us a

very varied set of results from which we could make a conclusion. If

any of the non-variables below were not kept constant it would mean it

would not be a fair experiment. For instance if one of the potato

tubes was 1cm longer than all the other potato tubes this would

therefore mean more space for osmosis to occur. Doing all the tests at

one temperature will control the temperature.

1 all the experiments were at room temperature.

2 The mass of the potato is a dependent variable. it was measured

throughout the experiment in grams. The potato tubes was measured

before it was put in the solution, This allowed us to see whether

osmosis had taken place, and to what extent.

4 The volume of the solution that the potato tubes were kept in must

be fair. They were

totally covered in the solution, and the amount of solution will be

kept the same because

all the potato tubes are the same size.

5 The length of the potato tubes were also constantly measured

throughout the experiment.