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ahhsrichbourgfall2021 project 1

Project by group ahhsrichbourgfall2021


Info

Explore Plants need water to survive so they will inherently suck up water in a cup.
Research Question How far can a piece of celery bend using salt and water?
Predictions The celery will bend a lot more.
Experimental Design We will start our experiment by getting a cup of 300 ml of water in four cups. In the first cup we will put 30 g of salt. In the second cup we will put 50g of salt. In the third cup we will put 75g of salt. In the last cup we will put no salt, this will be our control group. We will then cut our...
Conclusion We found that salt was responsible for the shrinking, shriveling, and bending of the pieces of celery. The more salt that we put into the solution, the more that the celery was affected. In the control group though, the celery sucked up so much water that it began to expand too much and split in...
About this Project

Sincerity in performing the experiments, duly reporting the results and asking questions.
-- Devesh Shukla, Scientist Liaison

Updates

Get to know your team’s scientist mentor, who will encourage and guide you through the scientific process of discovery. The more you share your ideas and research info, the more your mentor can help. You may also hear from a scientist mentor liaison who will be helping all the teams in your class.
PlantingScience Staff
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PlantingScience Staff
said

Looks like you are in the final stages of your projects.

It’s great to see that teams from your school are wrapping up and posting conclusions. Enjoy the final stages of your project, and feel free to post any final comments or questions you have for your mentors.

You have until Friday, November 19, 2021, for final posts to be added, so please be sure to thank your fellow teammates!

Devesh Shukla
said

Hi Brylen, Malik and Evan,

By so far one thing which is much clear by your experiments which you should point out as a result of your experiments. You can define the relationship between the shriveling, bending of celery with the concentration of salts.

Second, Testing the hypothesis, could you please test your hypothesis with the results obtained from your experiments?

    Devesh Shukla
    said

    Furthermore, I am interested in a result that showed the weight of celery was decreasing constantly until the 50 g of salt concentration, thereafter its weight was increased at 75 g of salt. The apparent question is why the weight has been suddenly increased? Any explanation guys?

Brylen
updated the project info
Brylen
uploaded Celery Bendiness 4.pdf in project files
Brylen
uploaded Celery Bendiness 3.pdf in project files
Malik
said

Me, Brylen, and Evan put each group on a paper towel and the more salt meant the more bendy the celery ended up. The control group celery sticks were not bendy at all. 

Brylen
uploaded Celery Bendiness 2.pdf in project files
Brylen
uploaded Celery Bendiness.pdf in project files
Brylen
said

We found out that the more salt that was in the solution, the more shriveled, bendable, and smaller the pieces of celery became. In the control group we found that the celery absorbed the water and bent naturally, expanded, and became extremely hard.

Brylen
uploaded 5DDDCA05-9BD8-4E00-A2DC-5CF1DC18E0A7.jpeg and 10 more files in project files
Brylen
said

Post experiment measurements: Group 1: (#1: 9.7 cm length, 1.7 cm width, 12.2 g) (#2: 9.9 cm length, 1.2 cm width, 9 g) (#3: 9.7 cm length, 1.7 cm width, 7.4 g)

Group 2: (#1: 9.5 cm length, 1.5 cm width, 8.5 g) (#2: 9.8 cm length, 1.2 cm width, 4.9 g) (#3: 9.8 cm length, 1.4 cm width, 7.8 g)

Group 3: (#1: 9.9 cm length, 1.5 cm width, 10.1 g) (#2: 9.7 cm length, 1.5 cm width, 8.9 g) (#3: 9.4 length, 1.3 width, 9 g)

Group 4/Control Group: (#1: 10.5 cm length, 2 cm width, 13.1 g) (#2: 11 cm length, 1.5 cm width, 14.5 g) (#3: 10.7 cm length, 2 cm width, 14 g) 

    Devesh Shukla
    said

    Hey Brylen,

    Good work...you are collecting the data nicely. Did you find any pattern in the variables? To find out any regular pattern, can make a graph in which you can put concentrations on x-axis and variables on y-axis.

Brylen
said

Celery: Group 1: (#1: 1.7 cm. width, 14 g.) (#2: 2 cm. width, 8.9 g.) (#3: 1.5 cm. width, 10.3 g.) Average= 11.1

Group 2: (#1: 1.8 cm, 10.4 g.) (#2: 1.5 cm, 6 g.) (#3: 1.6 cm, 9 g.) Average=8.5g

Group 3: (#1: 1.7 cm, 12.3 g.) (#2: 1.3 cm, 10.8 g.) (#3: 1.6 cm, 10.8 g.) Average=11.3g

Group 4: (#1: 1.8 cm, 12.5 g.) (#2: 1.6 cm, 13.2 g.) (#3: 2 cm, 13 g.) Average=12.9g 

    Devesh Shukla
    said

    Hi Brylen, Good Job! have you find anything common and contrasting in these groups? Did you observe any bending? what is your plan for salt treatments?

    Brylen
    said

    This was our information before we put the celery into the water I will observe the bend and other things tomorrow.

Brylen
updated the project info
Brylen
updated the project info
Brylen
said

Each group of celery correlates with the group of water that it was put into. 

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said

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Evan
updated the project info
Evan
updated the project info
Evan
updated the project info
Brylen
said

Hello, my name is Brylen. I am a sixteen year-old student at AJCHS. I am in the eleventh grade and I participate in many different extracurricular activities such as football, baseball, Mu Alpha Theta, Beta Club, Student Council, Spanish Club, and FCLA. With all of that I am in all advanced classes, so as you can see I am very busy and don't get much free time. I am looking forward to working with you and learning more about biology!

Evan
said

Hello Dr. Shukla, My name is Evan, I am a junior at AJCHS. Outside of school I enjoy bowling, woodworking, and hiking. 

Malik
said

Hello, my name is Malik. I am a very creative person. I love to eat spaghetti and play video games on my gaming laptop. I love my gold chains and rare aquarium fish. I also have a very strong passion for underwater exploration. One day I hope to be a millionaire with a beautiful waterfall aquarium that has an albino platinum gar inside of it. I also love illustrating stories. 

PlantingScience Staff
said

Hi all!  As you may have heard from Ms. Richbourg, we have broken out your groups into separate teams now, each with their own mentor.  This will hopefully make the going easier for everyone! 

We did our best to move your posts from the original team feed to your current project feed.  Let us know if anything is missing and we'll make sure it gets moved over.

Don't forget to update your project information!  Keep up the great work!

Jennifer@PS

Jeffrey Firestone
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Brylen
said

Group: Malik, Evan, and Brylen: We found in our experiment that the more salt was in the water, the more bendy and flexible the piece of celery was. Before we put the salt in with the celery, we put water with food coloring into a cup with a full piece of celery. After a day the celery had sucked some of the colored water all the way up into its leaves and it acquired some of the red tint. This showed us that the celery sucks up liquid before we had even started the experiment. 

Our research question is: How far can a piece of celery bend using salt and water?

We will start our experiment by getting a cup of 300 ml of water in four cups. In the first cup we will put 30 g of salt. In the second cup we will put 50g of salt. In the third cup we will put 75g of salt. In the last cup we will put no salt, this will be our control group. We will then cut our celery into 12 pieces that are each 4 inches or 10.16 cm. We will then put 3 pieces into each cup for 3 days to give it a good amount of time to suck all of the salt up. We will then measure the bendiness of each piece and compare each group.

    Devesh Shukla
    said

    Hi Malik, Evan and Brylen,

    Great observation as you found the bending of celery was increasing as your salt concentrations in water were increasing. Think over it... why is it occurring? What is the difference between the salty water and pure water with respect to its physical properties? What it can do with cells present in celery?

    Brylen
    said

    The reason the celery is sucking all the water up due to the high number of xylem tubes in the stalk. The difference between the water and the salt water is the salt is causing the water from inside the salt to be sucked out due to osmosis. It causes all of the water in the cells to be sucked out and left with that bendable and squishy texture.

    Donna Hazelwood
    said

    Hi Malik, Evan, and Brylen,

     

    Good experiment and observations. If i may add a suggestion to the great comments made by Dr. Shukla. Have you considered including red food coloring in a separate set of studies replicating the control and each of the concentrations of salt that you have used? 

    Plants are cool,

    Donna Hazelwood, Ph.D.

Donna Hazelwood
joined the project
Caroline Bush
joined the project
Sydney
said

Hello Dr. Shukla, hope you are having a good day today! I am in a group with Addilyn and Isabel. We did an experiment with celery and put it in tap water, and a solution of water with 10 grams and 5 grams of salt. We found that the celery in the normal tap water had the most bending and were very stiff while the celery in the salt solutions didn't bend at all but were very soft and mushy. 

Our research questions we choose to do is, do thin strips of celery bend more than thick strips? We are going to have three pieces of celery with different widths of 1 cm, 2 cm, and 3 cm. They will both be put in three different cups of 200 mL tap water and we would wait for three days to see the final results. We would make a chart and measure the bend of each celery at the end of each day to measure progress. Whenever measuring the celery after it has sat for three days, we would take an angle ruler to measure the bend. 

    Devesh Shukla
    said

    Your observation is interesting as you found the most bending in pure water (with no salt). Think over it... why is it occurring? What is the difference between the salty water and pure water with respect to its physical properties?

    Sydney
    said

    In response to your questions, we have concluded that the salt water solution is hypertonic while the pure water was hypotonic. The hypertonic solution is taking all of the water out of the celery which is what makes it limp and mushy. While in the hypotonic solution the celery is taking in water and refreshing the cells of the celery and making it crisp. Water goes into the cells and due to turgor pressure the membranes of the cells get pushed to one side causing the celery to bend towards said side.

Will
said

Dearest Dr. Shukla, how it pains us that we're not able to converse face to face. This is Will Keller, Carter Beanland, and Jake Merriman. We've designed this experiment with you in mind, all we desire is your approval. We love science and all in the field of science. We eagerly await your response. 

 

What we discovered was the higher the salt concentration in a solution, the more celery will shrivel and bend if placed into the solution for an extended period. So,

If celery sticks of equivalent mass, length, and width are placed in a solution consisting of water and salt, then as the concentration of salt increases the celery begins to shrivel more. This results in increased sponginess and more bend in the celery.

 

Our experiment is that we'll obtain a piece of celery and cut it into three pieces approximately 10 cm in length. We will then cut these pieces length-wise into three equivalent widths. This will result in us having nine pieces of celery of approximate length, width, and mass. We will then create three, 200 mL water solutions with varying concentrations of salt. One shall have no salt, as it will be a control. The other shall have a 15% concentration and the last will have a 30% concentration. We shall place three pieces of celery into each solution, wait twenty-four hours, and write down the changes in each piece of celery. Any change in length, mass, or width will be recorded, including any other physical differences. The aspect we're most concerned about is the curvature in the pieces of celery after being placed into the salt solution. We believe the higher the concentration of salt, the more the pieces will bend, and with a greater concentration it will bend significantly more.

    Devesh Shukla
    said

    Hey Will,

    Great observation as you found the bending of celery was increasing as your salt concentrations in water were increasing. Think over it... why is it occurring? What is the difference between the salty water and pure water with respect to its physical properties? What it can do with cells present in celery?

    Will
    said

    Dr. Shukla, the physical difference between saltwater and freshwater is the presence of sodium chloride. This causes the saltwater to be denser than freshwater, and also makes it a hypertonic solution. The shriveling occurs because water molecules wish to bond with salt molecules. They seek each other out. So, when a piece of celery that's usually full of freshwater is placed into a saltwater solution the freshwater in the piece of celery is diffused into the container. This means that the celery possesses less water, which causes the shriveling of not only the celery but it's cells as well.

    Will, Jake, and Carter

Sienna
said

Sienna, Megan, and McKena

We found that celery sucks up water and will change color if there is food coloring in the water. We also found that if you leave celery in a solution of water and salt, it will start to be bendy. It will shrink as well. The higher the solution, the more this occurs. 

Would the entire stalk of celery turn blue and reach maximum bend after a certain period of time?

Yes, the whole stalk would turn blue and reach maximum bend, but it would need more time, food coloring, salt, and water. With the short amount of time we had our celery in the water, it turned blue quite a bit and was pretty bendy. With more time, water, salt, and food coloring, the whole stalk would have to turn blue and bend until it touched each end of the stalk. This is because the coloring can't just go to the same places, it would have to spread. It would also become so absorbed of salt water that it would have to reach maximum bend at some point.

We will test this by performing the salt experiment but adding food coloring. We would also add more salt to our mixtures than what we first started with. Our mixtures would be 20% solution of salt in 200 mL of water with 5 drops of food coloring, then 30% solution with 10 drops of food coloring in 200 mL of water, then the last solution would be no food coloring and no salt in just 200 mL of water. We would then leave it in for a longer time than we did for the original experiment, for 3 days. The celery would be fully covered with water and there would be 3 sticks of celery in each cup. 

    Devesh Shukla
    said

    Hi Sienna, Megan, and McKena,

    Noticing your observations what do you think? what is occurring in the salty water that make the celery to bend?

    Sienna
    said

    Hi Devesh,

    In response to your question, we believe the salt shrinks the cells in the celery, which makes the celery flexible. This occurs because the salt water is a hypertonic solution. So when the celery soaks in the salt water, the solution is surrounding and flowing through the celery. The water in the celery moves out. 

Jolie
said

Kaden, Jolie, Jessie

In response to your questions, we found that hypertonic solutions have a higher concentration of solutes. As a result, the concentration of salt in water is higher than the concentration of salt in the celery, so through osmosis the water in the celery diffuses out and into the salt water solution while the salt moves into the celery. This causes a decrease in turgor pressure therefore reducing the rigidness of the cell wall making it more flexible.

Jaden
said

Hi this is Jaden, Kosie, and Aleshia. We found that the celery bent with the higher concentration of salt in the water. The celery bends from when the salt water is absorbed into the stem of the celery. 
We want to know how far the celery will bend with higher amounts of salt in 200 ml of water. 
We are comparing 40 grams of salt in water to the difference of 0 grams of salt in 200 ml of water. 
We are planning to measure out 40 grams of salt, and add it to the 200 ml of water. We will add the three pieces of celery, which should roughly be about 6 cm in length, and 1.5 cm wide. Then we will wait 48 hours to measure how far the celery will bend after being in the salt water solution.

    Devesh Shukla
    said

    Hi Jaden, Kosie, and Aleshia,

    Great observation as you found the bending of celery was increasing as your salt concentrations in water were increasing. Think over it... why is it occurring? What is the difference between the salty water and pure water with respect to its physical properties? What it can do with cells present in celery?

    Kosie
    said

    Jaden, Kosie, and Aleshia-
    The salt water is a hypertonic solution, which means it has a higher concentration of salt in the water than in the celery stick. As the water moves out of the celery, the cells shrink. The salty water is different than pure water because it is more basic than pure water. All the salt that comes out of celery, causes the cells to shrink, and it makes the stick bend. 

Matteo
said

We noticed that the celery that was in the cups with the most salt tended to bend more than the ones without salt. For example, the water mixed with 10g of salt caused the celery to bend more than the water mixed with 5g of salt did. From this, we will observe the bend of the celery based on the amount of salt in the salt water solution.

Matteo
said

1. Our group is Matteo, Pierce, and Nile, and our solution to make the celery bend more is to add more salt. 2. To begin, we will prepare a single cup with 200ml of tap water and add 20g of table salt to the cup, which will be labeled as the "20g" cup.                                                                                                                        3. We will have a control cup filled with only 200ml of water, without any salt. This will be labeled as the "C" cup.                                                                                                                                                          4. 4. We will be using tap water, filling one container with tap water and no salt and the other with tap water and 20g of salt.                                                                                                                                                    5. We will measure the mass, length, and width of each celery stick before the experiment.                               6. Once the experiment is over, 48 hours later, we will take the same measurements and compare them.

    Devesh Shukla
    said

    Hi Matteo,

    Great going... What is your observation?

Mallory
said

We had three cups for celery, one with no salt, one with 5%, and one with 10%. The one with no salt bent the most. The celery with salt just got limp and slimy. In another one, we had dye in water with the celery, which turned the veins and leaves blue. In our experiment, we are asking the question if not adding salt but adding the dye will make it bend more. We will get one cup with just water, one with water and 7 drops of dye and 20 g of salt, and one with water and and 7 drops of dye. With 300 ml of water, and three celery stalks in each cup at 10 cm, we will let the stalks sit for 24 hours. 

    Devesh Shukla
    said

    Hi Mallory,

    Great observation as you found the bending of celery was most in water with no salt. Think over it... why is it occurring? What is the difference between the salty water and pure water with respect to its physical properties? What it can do with cells present in celery?

Shealyn
said

Kaylee Shea and Madelynn 

From our experiment we found that the more salt that was in the water the more bendable the celery became. When we did the food coloring we found that purple food dye does not show up well in celery within a 24 hour time period. 

For our experiment we are going to use three different pieces of celery. We will put 200 mL of water in all three cups. In one cup we will have 10% salt, in another cup we will have 50% salt, and in the last cup we will have 90% salt. Our independent variable will be the salt. Our dependent variable will be the bend of the celery. We will measure the celery before and after the experiment. We will only be measuring the length, which will be 7cm. Our prediction is that the 90% will cause the celery to shrivel up, the 50% will just be very bendy, and the 10% won't have much change after 24 hours. 

    Devesh Shukla
    said

    Nice observation as you found the bending of celery was increasing as your salt concentrations in water were increasing. Think over it... why is it occurring? What is the difference between the salty water and pure water with respect to its physical properties?

Avery
said

Our group, Avery and Lia, preformed two celery experiments. In the first experiment, we discovered that the cup with regular H2O causes the most bending in the celery. We also observed that the 10% salt solution shunk slightly, and became more flimsey. In the second celery experiment, we observed that the celery reamined the same shape and texture. The biggest difference was the distribution of the colored water through the stalk. We used blue dye, which was absobed and transported through the veins and into the leaves, turning the celery slightly blue.  In conclusion, salt makes the celery less firm, and water causes bending, and celery absorbs and transports water through itself. 

We will preform a third celery experiment. To answer our question, does celery bend more based on the length? First, get six cups and label each cup with the length of celery, and type of water. We will fill six cups with 400 mL of tap water. We will then add 40 g of salt to three of the cups, then stir. Then we will cut celery into strips of 2, 4, and 6 inches long, all with a width of .5 in, two for each length(6 total). Next, we will place one stalk of celery into a different cup(1 per cup). Placing one of each length into a cup of regular water, and 10% salt water. Check celery every 24 hours and record your observations. Do this for two days, then compare your resluts. 

    Devesh Shukla
    said

    Hi Avery,

    Your observation is interesting as you found the most bending in pure water (with no salt). Think over it... why is it occurring? What is the difference between the salty water and pure water with respect to its physical properties?

Oregon
said

Hey Dr. Shukla, I hope you are doing well. In Brodie's and my expirement we had three different cups of water with celery. In the first cup we had 100% water solution, the second cup had 10% salt and the third cup had 20% salt. The first cup of celery curved the most and the second and third cups were pretty straight. 

We want to test the question, will 100% water solution affect the bend of the celery more than 15% salt water solution?

We will test this by taking sticks of celery and make them all the same size at 4 inches long and 1cm in width. One cup will be filled with 100% water and have two celery sticks completely submerged. The secomd cup will have a 15% salt water solution with two celery sticks. Both cups will have 250ml of water. Once these are assembled we will label the cups and let the celery sit for three days. On the fourth day we will find how the celery has changed by measuring the inside curve of the bend in cm. By measuring this we will see which solution caused more of a bend in the celery. 

p.s. My dad also wrestles my brothers haha. He wrestled in highschool, so now me and one of my brothers wrestle in highschool as well. It's a lot of fun.

    Devesh Shukla
    said

    Hi Oregon and Brodie,

    Your observations are interesting. What is pure water (with no salt) can do with celery? What may happen if you add 10% and 20% of salt in the water containing celery? You should also repeat your experiments... Just put a second lot to confirm your results if they consistent.

Jolie
said

Jessica, Jolie, Kaden

From our experiments, we found that the higher concentration of salt in the water the more bendable in the celery and from the experiment with food coloring we found that it takes twenty four hours for celery to absorb. Our research question was, "Why did the celery become bendable?" For experimental design, we are going to set up three different cups. One cup has regular water, one cup has a 25% salt solution, and one cup of 50% salt solution with each cup having 200 ml of water and two pieces of celery. Our independent variable is the percentage of salt. Our dependent variable is the bend of the celery. To measure the bend, we will measure between the two ends of the celery when it is at maximum flexibility. Our prediction is: if your raise the salt concentration, then the celery will bend more. Our celery will be 10 cm in length with equal widths. In our experiment, we are going to mix the salt concentrations, place the celery in the cups, leave it overnight, and then after twenty four hours we are going to measure the bend of the celery sticks. 

    Devesh Shukla
    said

    Hi Jessica, Jolie and Kaden,

    Your observations are good. Can you think about your observation that why the bending of celery depends upon the concentrations of slat? what is happening? Why does the salt in water compel the celery to bend?

PlantingScience Staff
joined the project
Matteo
said

1. Our group is Matteo, Pierce, and Nile, and our solution to make the celery bend more is to add more salt. 2. To begin, we will prepare a single cup with 200ml of tap water and add 20g of table salt to the cup, which will be labeled as the "20g" cup.                                                                                                                        3. We will have a control cup filled with only 200ml of water, without any salt. This will be labeled as the "C" cup.                                                                                                                                                          4. 4. We will be using tap water, filling one container with tap water and no salt and the other with tap water and 20g of salt.                                                                                                                                                    5. We will measure the mass, length, and width of each celery stick before the experiment.                               6. Once the experiment is over, 48 hours later, we will take the same measurements and compare them.

McKena
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Pierce ps305402
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Aleshia
joined the project
Kosie
joined the project

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