Carrot Lab

Carrot

Introduction: Salt has been a very important method of food preservation over the years.  It is part of our daily diet but too much salt can also dehydrate your body. When one carrot is placed in salt water it will shrink due to dehydration and the carrot placed in fresh water will swell with extra water.

Hypothesis: The carrot in the salt water will dehydrate and therefor shrink in size loosening the string tied around it.  The carrot in the fresh water solution will swell with extra water therefor tightening the string that is tied to it.  

Procedure: Place two clear, similar cups on a table.  With masking tape label one cup “salt water” and pour 2 cups of fresh water and 1 teaspoon of salt into that cup. In the next cup take masking tape and label it “fresh water” adding 2 cups of fresh water to that cup.  Next take a carrot and cut it equally in half.  Measure length and width of both pieces of carrot recording them on a paper labeled fresh and salt on the answer sheet.  Then take 2 pieces of string tying them tightly right below the cut of each carrot.  Place 1 carrot with the cut side placed down in the cup labeled “salt water”. Place the other carrot with the cut side placed down in the cup labeled “fresh water”.  Leave the carrots in the cups for 24 hours.  When 24 hours has passed take out the carrot submerged in the “salt water” and again measure the length and width of the carrot recording the information under salt on the information sheet.  Also look and record if the string tied around the carrot is tighter, looser or the same.  After all the information has been gathered for the carrot submerged in the “salt water” then take the carrot submerged in the “salt water” out and again measure the length and width of the carrot recording the information under fresh on the information sheet.  Also look and record if the string tied around the carrot is tighter, looser or the same.  Observe which type of water caused the carrot to increase and decrease in size.

Results:

Carrots before going in the different water baths

Carrot in salt water and carrot in fresh water for 24 hours

Carrots after 24 hours

Closer Look of Carrots after coming out of liquid solutions

Carrot being measured after being in fresh water

Carrot being measured after being in salt water

Conclusion: After taking the carrots out of there solutions 24 hours later I found there were significant differences between the two carrots.  The carrot that was in the salt water remained the same in width but shrank in length by 1/8”. The string remained the same amount of tightness that it started with.  The carrot that had been in the fresh water remained the same in length but increased in width by 1/8” with the string much tighter around the carrot.