Team 6 Matt, Carly, and Spencer

 We were asked to perform an experiment consisting of the use of celery to find out how the internal structures work in the movement of water and also the bending of celery with different concretions of salt.

 We started with some fresh celery that we bought at the store and cut them into identical 10 cm pieces. We then had three containers of water with different concentrations of salt in each one. One had 10 percent salt solution, an other had 5 percent, and finally as a control one container was simply water.  After leaving the 3 separate pieces of celery in each container over night in the refrigerator, we then collected and recorded our data the next night.

 By using the 3 stalks in each container, that way it tells you that the response of stalks in each beaker is representative for the entire population of celery stalks treated the same way, in order to determine if this was a common occurrence in a population of celery stalks.

 On our other experiment we took a single stalk of celery and placed it a cup with 4 cm of water sitting in the bottom and added a few drops of red food coloring to make it able to see the water movement in the stalk. After leaving this out in room temperature air over night, we recorded our data.

 Our first research question was "Will a solution containing NaCl allow celery to bend more readily?" However after preliminary research our research question became "What concentration of NaCl will allow celery to bend the most?"

 We hypothesized that a solution with NaCl2 as apposed to plain distilled water would result in celery that bends more readily. After the preliminary experiment proved our first hypothesis correct, we hypothesized that a higher concentration of NaCl in solution is directly correlated to the amount of bending in celery.

 After collecting this data we came up with an additional question, "What is the threshold concentration exactly when the bending of the celery stops?" An additional experiment was set up using 16 solutions varying from distilled water (control) and each one increasing by 5 % (10%, 15%, ). It was concluded that the amount of bending does not increase after sitting overnight in a solution of 30% or more. We quantified this data, setting values to the amount of bending. The maximum amount of bending was called "7" and normal celery in the control was called "1". Please see attachments for graph and to see the correlations.

How the celery bending was quantified: See picture.. The curvature of the celery was quantified by measuring the distance between the ends of the piece of celery (SEE PICTURE FOR CLARITY). Each piece of celery IS 10 cm in length if straight. The distance between the ends of the celery piece fell into a category. 3 pieces of celery was in each solution; these 3 were measured and averaged. Categories: 1: 10 cm (no curvature, control) 2: cm b/w ends 3: cm b/w ends 4: cm b/w ends 5: cm b/w ends 6: cm b/w ends 7: cm b/w ends

Water is pulled up the plant by tension (negative pressure) from above. Water molecules cohere (stick together), and are pulled up the plant by the tension, or pulling force, exerted by evaporation at the leaf surface. This serves to pull water up through the xylem tissue of the plant.

 How the celery was measured.

 One of the important factor in this experiment is the Turgor Pressure is the main pressure of the cell contents against the cell wall in plant cells and bacteria cells, determined by the water content of the vacuole, resulting from osmotic pressure, i.e. the hydrostatic pressure produced by a solution in a space divided by a semi permeable membrane due to a differential in the concentration of solute.  Turgor Pressure is a force that is exerted outward on a plant cell wall by the water contained in the cell vacuole. In terms of plant water potential, turgor pressure is usually expressed as the pressure component. This force gives the plant rigidity, and keeps it erect.

 Upon examining the celery from our first experiment the following day, we concluded that more bending was prevlent in the NaCl containing solutions, and the most bending within the solution containing the highest concentration of NaCl. Based on this conclusion and additional experiment was created and preformed using higher concentrations. It was concluded that a solution containing 30% NaCl allows the celery to bend the most, and is the optimun concentration. This experiment was repeated 3 times, to ensure that our data was accurate. All numbers are updated and averages. :)