The effects of osmosis on potatoes.

By Triston

Hypothesis

Tap: I believe over the two day span of the project the potato will increase in size, but will become smaller and smaller as more salt is added.

Distilled: I believe that the potato will increase In size, but less than the tap water, as distilled water is stripped of its minerals.

5% salt: I believe it will increase in size, but less so then the normal water because the cell will put out more water because of the imbalance of the salt.

15% salt: Might grow in size but will be affected by the salt

45% salt: I believe it will decrease in size. Definitely affected by the salt.

Materials

-Safety goggles

-Potato cubes, cut into 1 inch pieces in length, width, and height.

-Salt

-Distilled water

-Tap water 

-5 Beakers (1000 ml)

-Rulers

-Triple beam balance scale

Procedure

The amount of salt in the solution will be the independent variable. The controlled variables are the size of the potatoes at the beginning of the procedure, and the amount of water in the beakers.

1. Record the size and mass of the five one inch potato cubes using a triple beam balance scale and a ruler.

2. Fill a 1000ml beaker with 400 ml of water. For one beaker only use tap water. For one use distilled water. For one use 400ml of tap water, then add 5% of that as salt. Next one use 400ml of tap water, and then add 15% of that as salt. For the last one use 400ml of tap water, and add 45% percent of that as salt.

3. Add one potato to each beaker.

4. Record data at the start of this class and next class,

5. Create a graph to illustrate information.

Analysis

After performing the procedure and graphing the results we were able to see that after the two days in the water or salt water that the potato cubes continued to grow but the more salt that was added, the smaller in difference their was between the potato cubes at the start of the project and the potato cubes at the end of the project. At the end we found that the salt that goes into the water affects the growth of the potato cubes. Please look at our graph for proof. If you did, you can see that the tap water was the best one to increase the growth, while the distilled water had a slightly less effect on the growth. When salt was added, this dramatically decreased the amount the potato grew. Even though we added more salt in the later mixtures, it was apparent that it would not have such a massive drop rate as the first salt water mixture did compared to the tap water and distilled water.

Conclusion

At the end of the project, we found we were correct with all our procedures except the 45% salt water mixture, were we thought it would decrease in size. Please look at our graph and chart for proof. The things hat we would do differently next time would be the time difference in which we took them out. Also, We would keep the potato cubes in their longer, and record more often.

Collaboration (Group juggle)

If you couldn’t tell by the title, this involved group work, and juggling.

This did not end well.

Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a bad game. It’s when half the class is baseball pitchers, and your standing point blank in their face when the game becomes more nuts than aunt Matilda.

She’s pretty crazy.

So, the idea of the game is to learn how to be more cooperative and vocal, as in “NOT THE FACE!” or the famous “I’m over here!” I was a fan of the first one, saying (more like screaming) that line everytime the picture made a shot at, you guessed it, my face!

YEAH!

Overall, it was a fun lesson that had us stretching our legs and not filling in the blanks with our number 2 pencil. Always an A in my book.

My struggle in the game was trying to catch the koosh balls (safety hazard) with my face instead of my hands. Thank god for critical thinking, am I right?

The next time we do this I’ll bring a hub cab for a shield. Off my camaro. which I can drive to school or work. So I won’t miss a shift.

I don’t think I could have been more obvious with this, could I? I’m no exactly subtle, with my 120+ pounds of muscle, and 20 pounds of chocolate.

So let me get down to the key points in this post, which is how I collaborate inside and outside of school.

Well, I play hockey, and that is a team sport, what with the many roles you can play. Like goalies, who were probably dropped on their head as a child more often than needed to want to stand in front of the puck instead of shooting it. Inside of school, their is always the group projects in school, like the stop motion project in my computers class with my friend Taylor Pich, who someone should totally hire. Hard worker. Hard worker. Anyways, it requires us to pose for pictures and take them everytime we move one inch.

Agonizingly boring.

But the project is fun, and I have to switch classes soon, so this will be the end of my post for now.

Thank you for reading.