Experimenting with temperature and lactase
Cam, Joy, Anna and Jaxson
April 18th, 2019
Purpose:
The purpose of this experiment is to see how temperature affects the rate of an enzyme driven reaction. By heating each test tube to a different temperature, we are hoping to get different results on a Diastix
Hypothesis:
If the temperature of the water is increased, then the Diastix will read that there is more lactase in the milk because warmer temperatures are ideal for the enzyme lactase to be in to work best.
Materials:
- 1 Beaker
- 6 Test Tubes
- 6 Test Tube Stoppers
- Milk
- Hot Plate
- Lactase
- Diastix
Methods:
- Fill all test tubes with exactly 10 mL of milk and place in test tube holder (Make sure they are labelled)
- Fill one beaker with 100 mL of water
- In each test tube add 3 drops of lactase
- In the first test tube dip one of the Diastix to get a base result
- For the second test tube set the temperature of the hot plate to 7 and heat up the water to roughly 25 degrees and let the test tube sit in the water for 3 minutes.
- After 3 minutes has passed dip the Diastix into your test tube and collect your data.
- Repeat this process for the rest of the test tubes (3 – 6) and increment the temperature 5 degrees
Results:
Data Analysis:
As you can see in the graph the comparison between Temperature and Concentration of Lactase it starts relatively low in test tubes 1 & 2 however as the temperature was increased the Level of Lactase increased and proceeded to stabilize at roughly the same level (3 – 6).
Conclusion:
Overall, our hypothesis ended up being correct and with that the lab was very informative in how enzymes can work better in warmer temperatures. The evidence is clear that as you raise the temperature the concentration of glucose raises.
Error/Improvements:
To improve on this lab, some things we should have changed were things such as the number of drops used in each test tube and the amount of milk that was put in the test tubes. We agreed that the number of drops should have been decreased by 1 and the amount of milk increased to 25 mL of milk instead of the original 10 mL