An Investigation into Osmosis.

The first 200 words of this essay...

Year 11 Biology Coursework: An Investigation into Osmosis

Introduction

In this investigation, I am trying to find the answer to these two key questions below:

1 What are the factors that determine whether water moves in or out of the potato?

2 How does the concentration of a solution surrounding a cell affect movement in and out of cell across its semi- permeable membrane?

In order to do this I will need to consider what osmosis is and make some experiments to help me investigate and find answers for the key questions.

Background Information

Osmosis is diffusion of water molecules moving from a particularly permeable membrane from a high concentration to a lower concentration. The water molecules can pass both ways through the membrane in two- way traffic, but there is a steady net flow of water molecules into the lower concentration of water. In figure 1 is a diagram showing how osmosis takes place.

Figure 1 - What happens in Osmosis

Osmosis is important for living things such as plant and animal cells. For animal cells they can easily burst if they take in too much water by osmosis