Osmose i celler: eksperiment med rødbede, elodea og blodceller

We want to examine how different cells react with waters with different osmotic potential. If the osmotic potential is high outside the cell, what will happen to the cell? And if it’s the other way around (high osmotic potential inside the cell), how will the cell react? If the osmotic potential is the same inside as the outside, will the cell remain static? We will take cells from a beetroot, human blood cells, and elodea (water plant), and observe their reaction while we put water with different osmotic potential on the cells.We expect that they will react when the osmotic potential is higher and lower outside the cell. When the solution is isotonic (equal osmotic pressure) the cell will then, not react because the pressure is already equalized.

Method description:

We will use the cells of beetroot, human blood cells, and elodea. We will put them on a slide and afterwards add water with different osmotic potentials. We will then watch their reaction, to see if they have burst, expanded or if nothing has happened. Then we will interpret the results. In this experiment we have two main variables:

- What type of cell - Salt concentration

Materials/apparatus:

- Cells of beetroot- Human blood cells- Elodea- Blue slide stain (with 0.0% 0.9% and 2.0% salt)- Slides- Cover-slides- Microscope