Day 5

How can a Stella model enhance understanding of osmosis? 

 Objective:

 Explain how cells maintain homeostasis through membrane permeability.

Conduct an experiment that illustrates how cells maintain equilibrium by osmosis and diffusion.

Develop a Stella model to enhance understanding of the concept of diffusion and osmosis. 

Texas and National Standards

1A, 2AB,C,D, 3E, 4B

Materials:

PowerPoint presentation – “Building a Model Using Stella”

Student computers with Stella 

Stella model of osmosis (teacher made and to be used only if students are unable to make their own.)

Activities:  

1. Students draw a schematic diagram on paper modeling the process of osmosis based on the previous day’s discussion.
2. Teacher directed discussion explaining the Stella process of model construction using PowerPoint presentation, “Building a Model Using Stella”.   For the Stella tutorial go to "build a model"
3. Students create a Stella model of osmosis and prepare to explain the logic/math involved in the lab journal. The following links will  show changes in water and solute volume over time (osmosis model) and the second one will show changes in concentrations over time (concentration model)