Find out what the cell strength of a potato is.

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Aim:

In my investigation I intend to find out what the cell strength of a potato is.

Factors:

The factors which I am going to change in my investigation are the strength of the solution.

The investigation:

In order to make it a fair test I am going to only change one factor which is the strength of the solution. The factors which I am going to keep the same are; the size of the chips, the weight of the chips, the same amount of liquid and how long we keep the chips in the solution for.

My prediction

I think that in my investigation the chips in the dilute (Hypotonic) solutions will increase in weight and be much more firm and rigid. Although the chips in the concentrated (Hypertonic) solution will become flimsy and smoother and weigh less. I think this because osmosis will occur which is when the water inside the test tube goes to a level of lower concentration which would be in the cell vacuole. This would cause the cell to become turgid and gain weight in the hypotonic solution but in the hypertonic solution the water inside the vacuole will go out as it will go to an area of lower concentration, this would cause the chips to decrease in weight. The chips will become flaccid.

This is a diagram to help explain my prediction.

In order to show the reason behind my predictions I have done some research on the internet and I chose this diagram from my biology book as it best interprets what I mean.

Apparatus

The equipment which I will use are 6 test tubes, one for each molar solution, a test tube rack in order to keep my test tubes safe, a knife which I will use to cut the potato, a potato which will be tested to see if it has lost or gain weight after osmosis in each different type of solution and electronic weighing scales to make sure each chip weighs the same before the test to make sure it is a fair test.

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My preliminary work was to cut the chips out of the potato and removing the skin. I cut them of various sizes and weights to see what would be best to use in my experiment.

My conclusion to the work of above was that a long and thin which weighs about 2.8g chip would be best as they fit in the test tube easy and the results are more visible and reliable.

The thing that I am going to measure are: the size of the chips when they are cut to make sure they are all of equal ...

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