Biology Investigation
Investigating Osmosis in Plants
Experiment
We are investigating the effects of osmosis in plants. Osmosis is the process by which water moves through a semi-permeable membrane from a high water concentration to a low water concentration. This process does not require energy therefore is passive. We set up an experiment to test the affects of osmosis in potato chips. We put the chips in different solutions and recorded the results deciding whether they had become turgid cells or plasmolysed cell. With this information we could determine how osmosis effects plants cells.
Variables
You could change many things to the original experiment. Some things you could of changes are the temperature this might of sped up the rate of osmosis or may have had different effects on the potato chips. You could have changed what was put into the beaker i.e. other vegetables such as carrot or broccoli. This may have had effects on osmosis. You could of stirred the solution to try and make it speed up the rate of osmosis. You could of varied the solution you put the vegetable in by making a stronger sugar solution to see how much more water it would absorb and how much more osmosis occurred. All these are variables that could have been investigated to see what difference it had on osmosis in plants.