Potato Lab

Background information: A hypertonic solution is a concentration that is higher than the solution. A Hypotonic solution is a concentration that is lower than the solution. An isotonic solution is a concentration and solution that is the same amount.

Hypothesis question: What will happen if you put a potato in hypertonic solution? What will happen if you put a potato in hypotonic solution? What will happen if you put a potato in isotonic solution?

Hypothesis statement: If you put sugar water in one cup, salt water in another cup and plain water in another cup then the slice of potato will expand in the sugar water shrink in the saltwater, and stay the same in the regular water because of the hypertonic, hypotonic and isotonic solution.

Materials:
3 cups
Scale
Measuring cups
Water
Sugar
Salt
Paper pencil
3 potato slices

Procedure:
1) Gather materials
2) Cut the potato into 3 little slices
3) Weigh each slice of potato on the scale
4) Record the weight of each potato
5) Make a hypertonic solution. (20 ml of water, 80 grams of sugar)
6) Make a hypotonic solution. (80ml of water, 20 grams of salt.)
7) Make an isotonic solution. (100 ml of water.)
8) Place one potato in each cup and record which potato goes in each cup.
9) Leave overnight

10) Next day, take out each potato slice one at a time
11) Record the new weight of each potato on the scale.
12) Put the potato slices in the same solutions they were in.
13) Repeat steps 9-12
14) Clean up experiment
15) Find the differences in weight of each potato slice.
16) Write conclusion

Data and Analysis:
| Initial Mass| Day 1| Day 2| Change |
20% Hypotonic Solution Salt| 8.2 grams| 8.0 grams| 7.9 grams| -0.29 grams| 80% Hypertonic Solution Sugar| 8.0 grams| 6.5 grams| 5.6 grams| -2.4 grams| 100% Isotonic SolutionWater| 8.0 grams| 10.0 grams| 10.3 grams| 2.3 grams|

Conclusion:
What will happen if you put a potato in hypertonic solution? What will happen if you put a potato in hypotonic solution? What will happen if you put a potato in isotonic solution? The potato in the hypertonic will shrink the most out of all the solutions. The potato in the hypotonic solution will only shrink a little bit compared to the hypertonic solution. The potato in the isotonic solution will gain mass, and in two days the potato gained 2.3 grams.

My hypothesis was not correct. It was incorrect because I said that the potato would expand in the sugar when it really shrunk the most. In my data table you can see that the hypotonic solution, the hypertonic solution had the biggest change in mass out of all the solutions. In my experiment I think that some errors that could have occurred was, in the sugar solution on the second day I saw that it had a layer of dried sugar at the top and most of the water was evaporated from the cup. The next time I do this experiment I could put a lid or some sort of cover over the top of the lid so then less water will evaporate from the cup.