First Biology IA Question Help

[Fire1earth12]

Hi everyone, we're doing our first IA in Biology and our topic was this;

Question: Investigate a factor that effects transport across the membrane of a cell

So, I narrowed the factor down to temperature and I picked diffusion as the mode of transport so my question is this, is this a decent question for the lab?

How do various temperature gradients in a sugar/water solution starting from 0 degrees and adding 10 degrees more until 100 degrees is reached affect the diffusion rate within a semi-permeable membrane of cell represented by a dialysis tubing?

I figured that I'd have a sugar and water solution in a beaker with food colouring and in the dialysis tube I'd have just plain water and then I'd have multiple beakers with different temperatures of the sugar solution and see which one has the highest diffusion rate. But the problem is that is has to be quantitative and I'm not sure if this is.

Thank you so much!

[needaname]

Assuming I read this correctly, you are going to use food coloring

If you are able to keep a constant amount of food coloring, you can use a colorimeter.

Just google search that, i'm certain each school should have a colorimeter.

A colorimeter will give you the color, so you can see how much has transported

[IBdoingthistosurvive]

I was wondering which of these factors sounds good enough or if i'm even on the right track (for the same topic: Investigate a factor that effects transport across the membrane of a cell):

- polarity of substances

- size of channels proteins (assuming this is an animal cell)

- number of channels (assuming this is an animal cell)

- manipulating pH

[Fire1earth12]

If I had a beaker filled with water mixed with sugar and red food colouring and then placed a dialysis tube filled with plain water, would the red water/sugar solution diffuse into the tubing and turn it red and thus, leave the water on the outside of the tubing transparent?

[Fire1earth12]

Also, yes, your factors are true, but it's very difficult to manipulate all of them and I don't think it would be an easy task to write a procedure for.

[IBdoingthistosurvive]

Also, yes, your factors are true, but it's very difficult to manipulate all of them and I don't think it would be an easy task to write a procedure for.

I have decided to manipulate the pH, because my teacher said it was the most interesting topic of these factors i've researched, but should i'm not sure how to manipulate the pH without having 3 different beakers - one acid, one base and one water, but my teacher doesn't approve of that. Any suggestions?