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Rubber Egg Lab Essay examples

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1.Discuss the structure of the plasma membrane and explain the process of active and passive transport through the membrane. 2. Explain your observations in detail in terms of concentration gradient, diffusion, osmosis, osmotic pressure, passive transport, and active transport. Explain what happened to the blood cells at the various levels of concentration. Be sure to refer to the solutions as being hypotonic, hypertonic and isotonic. The plasma membranes are made up of proteins that form pores and channels, cholesterol to provide membrane stability and carbohydrate molecules for cell recognition. The most abundant component found in the plasma membrane is the phospholipid, which is bilayer. The plasma membrane is amphipathic …show more content…

An example of active transport would be pushing a stroller up a hill. Passive transport is diffusion across a membrane requiring only random motion of molecules with no energy expanded by the cell. Another example of passive transport would be rolling a ball down a hill. In the rubber egg lab also known as the osmosis lab, I first measured the circumference of the egg which was 6 inches. The egg had no cracks and was hard. I placed the egg in the vinegar and within seconds the egg started to bubble. These bubbles were carbon dioxide. After 72 hours the shell of the egg had started to dissolve or flake. This would be considered passive transport as the vinegar diffused across the egg shell without any force. Seventy-two hours into the experiment the membrane was exposed, and had a circumference of 8 inches. Before the egg had a shell and you couldn’t see through it but once the vinegar acted as an acetic acid it broke down the shell and left a yellow membrane that felt like rubber this is an example of diffusion. I then placed the egg in another container and put corn syrup over the egg for 24 hours. The egg had shriveled and shrunk, the water had left the egg and went into the syrup and that is what caused the egg to shrink. The corn syrup is essentially pure sugar with very little water so the osmotic pressure is very low. I then placed the shriveled egg in water and waited for another 24 hours. After observation the egg had no

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