Lab Report

Introduction and Background:

To be better prepared for this lab, be sure to have a clear understanding of osmosis and diffusion. Having a clear understanding will help one understand the results and have an good explanation to why. Diffusion is the movement of a substance from an area of high concentration to and area of low concentration. Also diffusion requires no energy so that’s why substances move from high to low concentrated areas. Osmosis is a type of diffusion where water passes through the plasma membrane into a solution where the solvent concentration is higher, making the concentration of the materials on both sides equal. The reason for this is because water will always flow in the same direction of the higher concentrated solvent. In this lab, trying to find the tonicity of the red blood cells used easy once osmosis and diffusion understand. Tonicity will describe the changes of the water and solvent concentration in the red blood cells. There are three different ways to describe the tonicity changes, which are isotonic, hypotonic, and hypertonic. Isotonic means the water is equal on both sides of the membrane. Hypotonic means the water concentration is high and the solvent concentration is low. Hypertonic means the water concentration is low and the solvent concentration is high. One is to examine the sheep’s blood mixed with three different substances given under the microscope; 0.9 % NaCl, 10 % NaCl and dH2O and determine the tonicity of each. The thought of hypothesis is that 0.9 % NaCl will have a hypotonic tonicity, 10 % NaCl will have a Isotonic tonicity and dH2O will have a hypertonic solution.

Materials and Methods:

The materials needed for this lab was sheep blood cells, 0.9 % NaCl, 10 % NaCl, dH2O which the sheep’s blood cells was mixed with the three substances to find the tonicity. A wooden applicator stick was used for putting blood onto each slide .Four slides was needed for putting each substance mixed with blood on. Filter...