5 Days of Fun Farm Science: Osmosis in Potatoes

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This week is our county fair, and the kids will be taking potatoes we've grown in our garden to show. I'll let you know how that turns out. :) In the mean time we were talking about osmosis. You know, the reason your fingers turn to raisins in the bathtub.  I found a fun illustration on the Supercharged Science website that explored this... using potatoes!

Osmosis in Potatoes

Materials:
4 thin slices of potato.
4 jars
water
salt
food coloring

Process:
We tweaked the experiment because we wanted to be sure we could "see" the water moving into or out of the potato slices. We did two glasses of water with food coloring, and two glasses without. We added salt to one of each color group. (about a Tbs per 2 cups)  We actually thought that maybe the potatoes would add their water to the salty water and that they would soak up the fresh water. What we discovered was the opposite.

After about an hour of soaking, we inspected the potatoes. The slices in the fresh water got more crisp (loaded with water), while the ones in the salt water became rubbery. They had given over their water to try and equalize the salinity of the water.

I hope you enjoyed this week of blog hops, and found lots of great ideas there. It was fun for us to discover the science all around us. No matter where you live, every detail of life shows it was created with an amazing design! 

Blessings, 

Laura

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