Investigating Osmosis

14/11/2017
Aim
• To investigate osmosis, the movement of water from a high water
concentration to a low water concentration, using potato and sugar
(sucrose) solution.

• Which do you think will contain more water molecules? The potato or
the sugar solution

• THINK – Does the potato have many sugar molecules in comparison to

some of the sugar solutions?
 Chip letter Starting Final mass Mass % change Mean %
Percentage of mass (g) (g) change (g) change
sucrose solution (%)

A       +  
0.0  B      +    
 C      +  
 A      -  
10  B      -    
0.1
 C      -  
 A      -  
20  B      -    
0.2
 C      -  
 A      -  
40  B  
0.4      -  
 C      -  
 A  1.4g    -  
60  B  1.3g    -    
0.6
 C  1.4g    -  
Calculations for the results table
•  Mass change = Final mass(g) – Starting mass(g)
• % change = (Mass change Starting Mass) X 100
• Mean % change = (% change in A + % change in B + % change in C). Divide
your answer by 3
• Plot the results of Mean % Change in Mass vs Concentration of sucrose
solution. The axes should look like the example below (choose the correct
number intervals for your data) The bigger the graph the better
 Write up
• Conclusion in full sentences
• What have you found out from your
experiment and your results?
• Eg "From my results I noticed that....." 
• Why did you think you got this result?
• "I think this is because.... "
• Were there any anomalies? If so, what
do you think caused them or was it just
EXPERIMENTAL ERROR?  CONCLUSION. E.g:
• Was there a pattern in your results?
Could you draw a line/curve of best
fit?  results each time..... I compared my results with another
• Did your results match your hypothesis
and/or prediction? Is this what you
expected?
• Evaluation in full sentences
• Evaluate the experiment NOT you.
• How could the method be changed to improve the
experiment? Were there any anomalies (odd results)?
• Were your results REPEATABLE? (i.e. did you get similar
results each time you repeated a test)
• Were your results REPRODUCIBLE? (did others get similar
results as you?) 
• Based on your results (and others if you've compared
results), how much CONFIDENCE do you have in your
• "I have a lot of confidence in my results and this conclusion
because..... I repeated the test 6 times and got similar
groups and we had similar results (use data to support)...."
• 
• Or.. "I don't have confidence in my results... they were
completely random.... I didn't take enough repeat
readings etc.