Investigating Osmolarity in Plant Tissues

 
Raw Data and Trends
 The data found and analysed is not completely reliable, because our experiment was done
incorrectly.
 Osmolarity is the measure of a solute concentration, defined by the number of osmoles of a
solute per litre of solution.
 After we investigated the osmolarity in Plant Tissues, we noticed that there wasn't a trend in
the decrease of mass, because some decreased by 0.24g and others by 0.12g.
 Our results still somewhat reflected an understanding of osmolarity, because during osmosis
when the solute contains a higher concentration of particles compared to the solvent, the
water inside will move out and this is why we get a reduction in mass, which is what happened
with the potatoes loss in mass
 
Characteristics
 Noticeably, there were results that were outliers
 The equipment and materials were not used correctly and sufficiently
 The weight was influenced by the aircon, giving inaccurate results
 The tare button was also somewhat fidgety, it wouldn't completely show a specific result
and would change by a few mg
 The potatoes weren't completely dry which potentially altered the weight of them
 
Conclusion:
Due to the experiment being performed incorrectly, the data doesn't completely reflect on osmosis.
Our experiment aimed to determine the osmolarity of potato pieces soaked in test tubes of water
that had varying concentrations of salt solution. In order to detect osmolarity, we must record the
loss of mass before and after soaking the potato pieces. Potato piece 3 had a decrease in mass of
0.13 when soaked in a solution of 0.5m, contrasting to potato piece 2 that had a mass loss of 0.12
when being soaked in 2.5m salt solution. This doesn't make sense and doesn't express osmolarity
because the higher concentration should have removed more mass out of the potato. This is a result
of the many errors that happened throughout the process of the experiment

Mass of potato piece Mass of potato piece after Total mass lost (g)
before (g) (g)
1 0.97 0.74 0.23
2 0.95 0.82 0.12
3 0.82 0.69 0.13
4 0.74 0.74 0
5 0.75 0.62 0.13
6 0.86 0.65 0.21
7 0.63 0.88 Gained 0.25
8 0.71 0.60 0.11
9 0.71 0.80 Gained 0.09
10 0.66 0.81 Gained 0.15
11 0.78 0.66 0.12
12 0.83 0.69 0.14
 Investigating Osmolarity in Plant Tissues
1.2
0.97 0.95
1 0.86 0.88
0.82 0.82
0.75 0.8 0.81 0.78 0.83
0.74 0.69 0.74 0.71 0.71 0.66 0.66 0.69
0.8
0.62 0.65 0.63 0.6
Mass (g)

0.6
0.4 0.23 0.21
0.2 0.12 0.13 0.13 0.11 0.12 0.14
0 0 0 0
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
Potato Piece

Mass of potato piece before (g) Mass of potato piece after (g)
Total mass lost (g) Linear (Total mass lost (g))