Beet Lab Report

The beet Lab experiment was tested to examine bio-membranes and the amount of betacyanin extracted from the beets. The betacyanin is a reddish color because it transmits wavelengths in red color and absorbs most other colors. The membrane is composed of a phospholipid bilayer with proteins embedded in it. The phospholipid bilayer forms a barrier that is impermeable to many substances like large hydrophilic molecules. The cells of beets are red and have large vacuoles that play a big role for the reddish pigment. This experiment aimed to answer the question, “How do cell membranes work?” The hypothesis we aim to test is: Cell membranes work as a fluid mosaic bilayer of phospholipids with many embedded proteins. We predicted that the 50% Acetone will break down the most betacyanin. Our hypothesis was proven wrong by our data collected. We could test our predictions by doing the experiment multiple times and compare the

The least absorbed was the 4 Celsius with only 0.040 absorbed. The most absorbed was -20 Celsius with 0.219 absorbed.

Treatments Absorbance

-20 C 0.219

4 C 0.040

22 C 0.080

37 C 0.125 The mean for the temperatures is 0.116 and the solvents is 20. We predicted the 37 Celsius would be the most absorbed, but it was the -20 Celsius which can be seen in the graph above. Discussion

The data we gathered was tested to be as accurate as possible. Our prediction on the solvents did not support our data that we collected. The cause of this could be due to human error when washing the beets or the cutting of the beets. The beets were not perfectly cut the same size, so some beet pieces were bigger than others which can affect the final the final result. We followed each step and followed the time limits cautiously. I can say if we were to redo the experiment our results would be similar because we would attempt to do the experiment as close as we did the first