Question

activity to shiw osmosis using raisins and potato with diagram

Answer 1

Osmosis Experiment

Since osmosis and diffusion occur at the cellular and molecular level, it can be tough to picture, but with the help of a little osmosis experiment, you can actually see – to an extent – the process in action. Hands on experiments like this are a great way to engage students in learning.

What You’ll Need

two plates

one raw russet potato

knife

tablespoon

salt

water

Since this experiment requires a knife to cut the potato in half, an adult should always be present during this experiment. Or if you’re a teacher, you can cut the potatoes and seal them in bags for the class beforehand, though it’s recommended that the potatoes are cut fresh. The plates should also be elevated enough on the sides that pouring water on them won’t cause them to overflow, and will create a nice pool for the potato slice to soak in.


Instructions

First, lay out your two plates and fill them both with the same amount of water. It’s important that both sides have the same amount of water. Measure out two tablespoons of salt and sprinkle it into the water in only one of the dishes. Make sure you label which dish has the salt, and which dish doesn’t. This is vital.

Next, slice the potato. Remember, don’t let small children do this step themselves! The rest of the experiment is safe and easy for children of all ages, but slicing the potato should be done by an adult. If you are a science teacher conducting this experiment for an elementary or middle school class.

Make sure you slice the potato down the middle, lengthwise. You want there to me as much of the raw potato exposed as possible. Place one potato half with the flat side down onto one dish, and the other half down on the other dish. Then, you wait. You should allow about two to three hours for the potatoes to soak in the water.

What you’ve essentially setup is a catalyst for osmosis. One potato half is soaking in a pool of freshwater, while the other potato half is soaking in a pool of salt water. What do you think will happen? If you’re teaching a class, this might be a good time to have students write down their hypothesis, or to cover relevant material in a text book so that when you return to the experiment, students will have an understanding of what has occurred.

After a few hours has passed, flip both potato halves over and have the students observe what has happened. The potato that was soaking in the freshwater will be slightly more dense, and with the same fresh white-ish color as before. The potato has soaked up some of the water.

The potato that was soaking in the saltwater will look much different. Its flesh should be slightly discolored, and the potato will be much softer than the one sitting in the fresh water. What occurred here was osmosis. The cells inside the potato have had the water sucked out of them by the high concentration of salt in the water of the surrounding dish.

While the water in the potato might contain a very small amount of sodium, it is nowhere near as concentrated as the salt inside the dish. This means the water inside the potato cells have passed through the semipermeable membrane of the cell walls and out into the dish of water. The collapsed, dehydrated potato cells are the reason for the mushiness and discoloration.

Answer 2

Keep a raisin in a highly concentrated water in a jar so that the water acts like a hypertonic solution now after sometime you will observe that the raisin shrinks this is due to osmosis the water inside the raisin went to the water outside i.e. the water want from a region of low concentration to region of high concentration. You can perform the same activity woth potato and you will observe that the potato has also shrinked. And in the diagram ypu can show a little bit bulky raisin and then put an arrow like this -> to show the shrinken raisin.
Hope this helps you and if possible then please mark it as the brainliest answer.