5. Cell Size Lab Procedure
Sit in your lab group of 3 people.
Using the razor blades and plastic knives, cut three cubes from the agar.
One 3 cm cube, one 2 cm cube, and one 1 cm cube.
3. Place all three cubes in one beaker, and cover them with NaOH. Pour carefully.
4. Soak the cubes in NaOH for 10 minutes.
5. During the 10 minutes of soaking, answer Discussion questions #1-5. One set of answers
per person. Talk with your partners, but write your individual answers.
6. After 10 minutes, take the three cubes out of the NaOH and lay them on a piece of paper
towel.
7. Immediately cut the cubes in half with the plastic knife, and measure how far osmosis of
the liquid came in from the side.
8. Record the measurement in mm for each cube. Make a chart recording the size of the
cube and how many mm in osmosis occurred.
9. Draw what each cube looks like after you cut it open. Include these drawings on your
chart.
10. If you have time, begin to answer questions 1-9 on the second set of discussion questions.
We will finish these questions, and do our post-lab explanation on Wednesday and
Thursday.
11. Make sure you rinse and dry all your lab materials! The only thing to throw away is the
used agar!

9. 1 cm cell cube 2 cm cell cube 3 cm cell cube
Size of cell Distance material Drawing SA:V
moved in by osmosis
(mm)
1 cm cell cube
2 cm cell cube
3 cm cell cube

10. Size of cell Distance osmosis went in Drawing of cell SA:V
(mm)
1 cm cell cube
2 cm cell cube
3 cm cell cube