The relationship between turgidity of potato cells and the concentration of the surrounding medium

Aim:

To find the relationship between turgidity of potato cells and the concentration of the surrounding medium.

Prediction:

I predict that as the concentration of sucrose increases the mass of the potato chip will decrease. When the concentration of sucrose is equal to the volume of water, I predict that the mass of the potato chip would stay around the same. As the concentration of sucrose decreases the mass of the potato chip would increase.

Hypothesis:

I predict the above because the process that occurs in this experiment is osmosis. Osmosis is the transfer of water from a high concentration to a low concentration. Therefore when there is low concentration of sucrose in the medium, the water molecules inside the potato chip goes out of the chip into the medium to equalize the solution. So when there is a high concentration it will be the opposite, the water molecules go inside to the potato to balance the solution.

Variables:

The variables we are going to work with are the Mass of the potato chip and the Volume of the medium. We will try and keep the mass of the potato chips the same by cutting each chip with a corer and then cut into the same length. The same potato will be used in order to obtain a fair test. We will change the concentration of sucrose in the medium. We will use five different measurements of concentration in order to receive a meaningful result. These measurements of the concentration of sucrose will be 0%, 25%, ...