| Explore | Outside of school we know that plants need water, nutrients, and sunlight to survive. In class we've discovered that salt is not good for celery because it causes it to bend. A question we have is why does salt cause all plants to wilt and bend or just celery? |
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| Research Question | Why did the celery become bendable? This fits what we know about the topic because we know that the celery bends in the salt water but we don't know why. |
| Predictions | The celery will bend more because of the higher concentration of salt. We think this will happen because the solution will be hypertonic so the celery will absorb the salt water and the water in the celery will leave the celery and move to the salt solution. This decreases the turgor pressure and decreases the rigidity of the cell walls. |
| Experimental Design | For experimental design, we are going to set up three different cups. One cup has regular water, one cup has a 15% salt solution, and one cup of 30% salt solution with each cup having 300 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. |
| Conclusion | The higher the salt concentration the bendier the celery becomes. The higher concentration of salt outside the celery the more salt the celery absorbs, decreasing the water present in the cells therefore decreasing the turgor pressure against the cell walls making the cell walls become weak. The salt also causes the celery to float. An experiment that could be done in the future based off this experiment would be to test what would make the celery more rigid. |
| Investigation Theme | CEL |
| Grade Level | High School Students (Grades 9,10,11,12) |
| Teacher Name | Emily Richbourg |
| School Name | Anna-Jonesboro High School |
| Session | Fall 2021 |