HYPOTHESIS

I think the salt will soak into the potato, causing it to harden and not be soft on the inside anymore. When I picked up the potato to rearrange it, the salt had already attached to the potato and had created a coat around it, making the potato have a hard texture. I think the starch will absorb the salt and make the somewhat wet texture harden causing it to not rot as much and become harder.

How Will The Salt Affect the Potato?

Why Do I Think That Will Happen?

The reason for why I thought this is because of what we learned about the mummification process in Ancient Egypt and the reason why was so they could preserve the body and not have it decay. Our social studies book states,”Next, they filled the body with a mixture of salt and herbs to create a mummy. A mummy is a body that has been dried so it won’t decay.” This leads me to believe that the salt will dry the potato and make it harden up.

How Does Adding Salt to a Potato Connect to the Ancient Egyptians & mummification process?

To me it relates because of the way that Egyptians used an alkine salt called natron to fill the sacks of the body and covered the body in it to preserve the outer flesh. This applies to our experiment because the potato represents the body and by using salt it relates to how they used salt to preserve the outer flesh. My guess is the salt will preserve the potato by soaking into the potato and making the outside skin hard.