Awesome Osmosis

Students collected qualitative data on celery during a recent experiment. Celery was placed in sugar water, salt water, and the control was placed in tap water.    After four hours, the celery was checked for differences in quality.  Students looked for changes in color, crispness,  flexibility and changes in the water color.

Students learned that osmosis is a type of diffusion that occurs when water moves through the cell membrane of a cell until equilibrium is reached.  The sugar molecules moved into the celery through osmosis using passive transport.  The celery structure changed very little during the four hours. 

The salt molecules were not able to move through the cell membrane.  The water moved out of the celery because the cells were trying to reach equilibrium.  This caused the celery to dehydrate and the cell membrane to break down.

The results of the experiment were communicated,orally, in short videos.