Planting Science - Projects: Celery Lab
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Celery Lab

Project by group othsmikosfall2020

Explore Plants are very different from humans and have very different systems, yet stay alive all the same. Plants are made of different types of cells that work at different speeds for different duties to maintain homeostasis and stay alive. How do THEIR systems and body work to stay alive? For example, we'd drown if submerged in water for 24 hours, but they don't- and they usually survive it.
Research Question Would the  celery curl more if the epidermis was removed? We came up with this question because we were talking about boiling the celery at first, but then we started talking about the different cells and how some blocked water from coming in, like the epidermis, and we figured that if we removed the skin it would allow the celery to soak up much more water and become less rigid without the skin keeping it's form.​
Predictions We think that the celery with both sides free of the outside epidermis will curl the most. We know that the thin inside cells inside the celery expand when they fill with water, and we think the expanding will cause the rest of the celery to bend.
Experimental Design We will use a 9"x13" baking pan and fill said pan with 3 cups of distilled water. Then, we will skin 3 5-inch celery stalks so the epidermis is completely cut off, cut off on only half, and left on for the last one, and a ruler to measure the stalks precisely before we cut them and after when they are hopefully curly. The measurements and data will be recorded of the stalks before testing. The stalks should be submerged for 12 hours in the same pan. After taking them out and recording the data from the testing period, we would repeat the exact same steps for one last trial. The data will then be compared between the 2 trials.
Conclusion The epidermis inhibited the movement of the thin inside cells, because it keeps the celery from absorbing too much water when it's growing. Once the skin was removed, the celery was able to move and absorb as much water as it could. Since the cells were expanding, they were pushing on other cells, causing the whole stalk to bend to compensate for the expansion.
Investigation Theme CEL
Grade Level High School Students (Grades 9,10,11,12)
School Name Ottawa Township High School
Session Fall 2020

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NSF_Logo.jpg This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant #2010556 and #1502892. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

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