Egg Diffusion Lab

   In this lab, we placed one egg in sugar (corn syrup), and another egg in deionized water for 48 hours.  The eggs had both been in vinegar for 48 hours to dissolve the egg shell, and had sat in water for a week prior to the experiment. 

   When we took the observations we found that the mass and circumference of the egg sample in sugar had decreased.  This had happened because the egg in the sugar solution was hypertonic, so it lost water to try to make an equal concentrations on both sides of the membrane.  The solvent of water diffused through the membrane to the lower concentration of water in the corn syrup.  The solute sugar had molecules to big to be moved through the membrane by passive diffusion so it stayed outside of the egg.  

   A cell's internal environment changes when its external environment changes because many molecules passively diffuse and the internal environment tries to mirror the external environment to reach equilibrium.  

   This lab demonstrates the concept of passive diffusion in which solvents on the side of the membrane with high concentration, will move through to the side of the membrane with low concentration to try to reach equilibrium in the concentration of the solutions.  This process does not require any energy.  

   Vegetables are sprinkled with water in markets to keep the solvent water the same concentration in the plant, preventing the plant from drying out and wilting.  plants along roadsides that are salted will become hypotonic and will gain too much water when the plant try's to reach equilibrium in the concentration of the salt and water inside the plant. 

   Based on this experiment I would want to learn more about how solutes effect multi-cellular organisms.  This could be done by seeing how salt or sugar would effect plants when they are watered a solution that has a solute inside it.

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