By Harriet Vender
Take a raw baby carrot and tie a string around it tightly (add a knot so it won’t come off). Put it in a container of salt water and let it sit overnight.
Check the carrot the next day and you will find that the string isn’t tight anymore — it will probably be so loose that the string falls right off. This is due to OSMOSIS.
Osmosis is the movement of a fluid across a membrane. If it can, water moves to a place where there is a lower concentration of water. The water from the carrot moves into the salty water and therefore the carrot shrinks.
-Harriet Vender is a 7th- and 8th-grade science teacher
