1. Turgor Pressure Lab
Objectives:
•To explore how force affects turgor pressure
in plants.
•Identify how pressure provides plants with
support

2. Introduction
Plants have water in their cell vacuoles, the water
pushes (like a force) on the cell membrane and cell
wall creating a type of pressure which makes the
cell kind of stiff or rigid.
This type of pressure is called turgor pressure,
enabling the plant (or stem) to stand upright. Lack
of water will cause a drop in turgor pressure,
causing the plant to wilt and die.

3. Pre-Lab Analysis Questions:
1. Write a definition for turgor pressure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_jw60Is06g

4. Pre-Lab Analysis Questions:
2. What happens when a plant wilts?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNyYuVarTIQ

6. Pre-Lab Analysis Questions:
3. How do you think a piece of uncooked
potato (French fry) will change when it is
soaked in salt water?

7. Hypothesis:
Write a hypothesis using the If-Then format.
If____________________________________,
then _________________________________ .

8. Observations:
On your T-Chart, observe the piece of potato soaked in water
and the piece soaked in saltwater. Compare them. (How are
they alike? How are they different? Think color, texture,
firmness, etc.)
Potato soaked
in saltwater
Potato soaked
in tap water
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

9. Video Questions:
1. Describe the celery before the fresh
water was added.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhsurzE_-J0

10. Video
Questions:
2. Describe the
celery at the end
of the video.
3. Approximately how long did it take the celery to
change?
It took approximately _______________ to
become rigid again.

11. Post-Lab Analysis Questions:
1.What does the amount of bend tell you about the
turgor pressure inside the potato cell?
2.What effect did the salt solution have on the
potato?
3.Which one caused greater turgor pressure inside
the cell, the tap water or the salt water solution?

12. Conclusion:
You will need to write your conclusion on a separate
sheet of notebook paper.
Write your conclusion in paragraph form. Please
remember to:
• State the purpose or objective of the lab
• Rephrase your hypothesis
• Briefly summarize the experiment. What did you
do?
• What were the results? (Include the data. What
direction did the water move. Why?)
Ex: In the turgor pressure lab, a potato was used to
demonstrate how ____________