In this lab, we were asked the question, "how and why does a cell's internal environment change, as it's external environment changes?" We used eggs that had dissolved membranes and soaked one in normal water and one in sugar water.
In the distilled water, the egg increased in both mass and circumference. In sugar water, the egg decreased in both mass and circumference. The average mass was -47.25% and the average circumference was -22.94%. They decreased because of hypertonic passive diffusion which is when there is a greater concentration of solute outside of the cell and low concentration inside the cell. The solvent goes from high concentration to low concentration of solvent and diffused outside of the cell, shrinking it.
The cell's internal environment changes to maintain concentration gradient and equilibrium. The cell changes like how the egg in vinegar dissolved the cell and also grew in mass and circumference. The cell balances out the amount of solute and solvent both inside and outside of the cell.
This lab demonstrates homeostasis because the cell responds to the environment around itself and adjusts itself to stay in the same internal conditions as before. The egg diffuses solvents and solutes until everything is equal like before it was in that certain substance.
vegetables are sprinkled with water so that they don't shrink as they dry out. The water is diffuses into the cell and the vegetables grow in size a little bit. The salting to the plants makes the plants shrink because the salt adds to a greater solute concentration and makes it hypertonic. Water will leave the plant cells and the plant will wilt.
Based on the experiment, I would want to test if different types of cells shrink/grow at different rates with the same concentration of solutes and solvents because it would be interesting to see if different types of cells change differently or not.
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