experiment

[Toni]

What happens to a leaf if it is placed in salt water for 20 minutes? Also, what would happen if it were placed in water only?

[MelissaB]

Toni,

It sounds like that would make a great experiment--try it with your child and find out! I would also suggest leaving (pun absolutely intended) some leaves (dead or alive, by the way?) in water/salt water for a longer period of time--say, 24 hours. There may be longer-term changes you don't see if you don't leave the leaves in the water long enough.

[ScienceExpert123]

Dear Toni,

I think that when a leaf is placed in salt water it will shrivel up, it will shrivel up faster if the salt water is boiled. As a more detailed/scientific answer: when a leaf, which is made up of plant cells, which is mostly composed of water, is placed in salt water osmosis causes water from inside the plant cells to move through the cell wall, causing the cell wall to break, which causes the leaf to shrinks. Good luck.

[deleted-71536]

Hi Toni,

Your experimental question sounds very interesting! Have you tried it and gotten any results?

As a clarification, what happens to your leaf will depend on a number of factors: (1) how concentrated your salt water is, (2) how much water is in the leaf (which gets back to the dead versus alive idea), (3) how permeable your leaf is to water, and (4) how long the leaf stays in the water.

(1) The salt water concentration will be key to understanding the process of osmosis (a fancy name for movement of water). You can determine the concentration of your salt water by making it yourself, and measuring exactly how much salt you put in how much water.

(2) You will probably want to use freshly picked leaves for this experiment, because dead leaves tend to be very dry already. A freshly picked leaf will have a relatively high water content, and might lose water to its surroundings. Dead leaves will probably only gain water - even from salt water.

(3) How permeable the leaf is refers to how easily water can pass between the leaf and its environment. Some leaves have a waxy coating that helps them retain water. You might expect waxy leaves to show less of an effect than some others.

Good luck, and feel free to post with further questions!

Heather

[SRGT BUBBLES]

Hello,

I would predict that if you placed a leaf in salt water, the leaf would shrivel up. In other words, it would decrese in volume. However, if you placed the leaf in common water, I would hypothesis that it would preserve the leaf to some extant. Hope that helps...