Osmosis required practical

• You can observe the effects of sugar solutions on plant tissue

  • Cut up a potato into identical cylinders
  • Get some beakers with different sugar solutions, one should be pure water and another a very concentrated sugar solution, then have a few inbetween
  • Measure the masses of the potato cylinders, and leave one cylinder in each beaker for 24hrs.
  • Take them out, dry them with a paper towel and measure their masses again
  • If the cylinders have gained mass, they have drawn water in by osmosis
  • If the cylinders have lost mass, they have lost water by osmosis.
• You can calculate the percentage in mass and plot graphs to show it.
• By calculating the percentage mass you can compare the effect of sugar concentration on cylinders that didn't have the same initial mass.
• The dependent variable is the chip mass
• The independent variable is the concentration of the sugar solutions
• Potential Errors in Osmosis RP

  • Some potato cylinders not fully dried before weighing
  • Water evaporating from beakers
• Reduce the effect of errors by repeating