Egg Diffusion Lab

Egg Diffusion Lab

            The mass and circumference of the egg when the salt concentration increased got a lot smaller, with an average percentage change in mass of -46.0925% and an average percentage change in circumference of -22.11%. A hypertonic solution caused the change because there was more solvent in the egg that left to dilute the corn syrup, causing the shrinkage. The solute moves from areas of high concentration to low until they reach equilibrium.

        A cell's internal environment changes as it's external environment changes by using diffusion to adapt to different external environments in order to survive. When the egg was placed in vinegar, it got bigger because since vinegar is part water, it was able to diffuse the water into it to adapt to the new conditions of the vinegar. When placed in water, the egg returned to it's normal size because of an isotonic reaction with the water inside the egg and the water outside the egg. When the egg was placed in sugar, it shrunk because of the solute leaving the egg.

       This lab demonstrates hypotonic, hypertonic, and isotonic reactions within a cell. Since we are learning about diffusion and these reactions in class, this lab was important for our proper understanding of the subject.

        Fresh vegetables are sprinkled with water at markets so they can stay in a diffused state and remain healthy and fresh. Salting the vegetables would dehydrate them because of a hypertonic solution that would cause the water to diffuse and be replaced with salt water, causing the vegetables to dehydrate and shrivel.

       Based on this experiment, I would want to know why snails bubble when they get into contact with salt. I'd want to find a snail-friendly way of testing this though, of course. I think it happens because of a hypertonic reaction with the moisture on the snail's skin conflicting with the salt. 

Egg Cell Macromolecules Lab

                                                              Egg Macromolecules Lab

            In this lab we asked the question, "Can macromolecules be identified in an egg cell?" We found that proteins, monosaccharides, polysaccharides, and lipids were all found in the egg whites, while the other parts of the egg only had a few. Our hypothesis for the egg white was that if the cell walls include monosacchardies and polysaccharides, then these will also be found when testing the egg whites. There were about 5 of each macromolecule in the egg whites, and the colors observed were purple (monosaccharides), yellow-orange (polysaccharides), purple (proteins), and white-orange (lipids). Our hypothesis for the egg yolk was that if the egg yolk is a giant cell, then all of these macromolecules will be found in it. Every macromolecule was found in the egg yolk except for lipids. The quantitative and qualitative amount of macromolecules found were dark purple, 8 (monosaccharides), golden, 7 (polysaccharides), brown/purple, 8 (proteins). Our hypothesis for the egg membrane was that if the cell membrane is made up of lipids and proteins, then when testing the egg membrane, lipids and proteins will be found. Proteins and lipids were present in the egg membrane, with qualitative and quantitative observations of purple, 3 (proteins), pink/red, 2 (lipids). This data supports our claims that

         Our data contradicts the expected results because while we expected every macromolecule to be present in the egg yolk, it was missing one of them. There weren't any lipids present at all in the egg yolk and because of this, our hypothesis of "If the egg yolk is a giant cell, then all of these macromolecules will be found in it," was false. One error we came across is that for the polysaccharides test, the person testing accidentally put too much iodine in the egg white. Although we only had one error, another possible one could've been cross-contamination of the chemicals. Due to these errors, in future experiments, I would recommend carefully watching how much you put in each test tube and cleaning each dropper everytime you use it.

         This lab could have been improved by maybe keeping better track of our observations and communicating with each other more for more accurate results. This lab was important in understanding biological concepts because the egg is a very good representation of a cell, since it literally is just one giant cell. By interacting with an actual cell, we were able to grasp a better understanding.