03.14.2019
Experiment Leaders: Lizzy and Gerardo
During our visit to Marcy Open Elementary School, we taught the students about diffusion and osmosis. We began by introducing the concepts and explaining how these processes are necessary for humans to breathe and take in nutrients within their cells. Osmosis is also very important for maintaining gradients in plants to obtain water and nutrients. We demonstrated these concepts by running experiments that involved watching water with food coloring diffuse into paper towels. We altered the conditions to see how changing the water’s temperature and osmolarity, as well as the physical nature of the paper towels, altered the ability of the colored water to diffuse. The students wrote hypotheses and analyzed their results to determine which condition leads to the fastest diffusion.