BLOG 27 - Experiment Graph. That is, interpret your hypothesis by making use of data

Figure 1: This graph shows the difference in high and low frequency of the sounds, and the varying tempos, volumes, and pitches. 

In conclusion, our hypothesis states that "the increase and decrease of tempo, pitch, and volume will induce or reduce stress on the heart, causing the heart rate and blood pressure to rise and fall." The graph shows that the results for tempo and pitch were about correct, but volume did not have much of an effect on the subjects. 

Blog 26

As of right now, things are going pretty smoothly with our experiment. We have gotten the results for everyone in our group, which is good. One thing that our group discovered is that this experiment is not as simple to run as we thought it would be because there are so many tests that it takes a long time to test one person. However, it is not something that is completely out of hand, and so far we have executed it quite smoothly. One example of things going well are the results of my heart rate and blood pressure. My starting heart rate was 64 bpm. That raised when the pitch was higher on all of the trials and lowered a bit when the pitch was softer.

Blog 25 - Hypothesis and Methods

Our hypothesis is that if one increases the beats per minute (BPM) then the pitch and volume of the recording will cause the heart to become stressed, leading to a rise in one's heart rate and blood pressure.

Methods: 
First, headphones will be placed on the subject. The first set of beeps will be very slow with a high pitch and volume. After listening to the first set, we will measure their heart rate and blood pressure with an arm pump. The subject will then rest for three minutes in order for their heart rate to go back to normal. The second set of beeps will be very slow again but with a low volume and pitch. Again we will measure, and record their data and the subject will rest again for three minutes. The third set of beeps is very slow with a high pitch and low volume. Afterwards we will measure, and record data and the subject will rest. The fourth set will have a very slow BPM and a low pitch and a high volume. We will continue to measure the data and the subject will continue to rest for three minutes. The fifth set we do will have a very fast BPM with a high pitch and volume. The sixth will have a fast BPM with a low pitch and low volume. The seventh set we test will have a fast BPM with a high pitch and low volume. The eighth set will have a fast BPM also but will have a low pitch and a high volume. After each test we will measure the data with the arm cuff, then we will record the data and the subject will rest for three minutes. After all of this, we will compare our data to see if our hypothesis proves to be correct.

Blog 24 - Experiment Brainstorm

One idea that our group brainstormed for an experiment was to test how removing a certain food group from one's diet might effect one's strength. We were thinking that if we did this, 3 sets of 2 members of the group would remove a certain thing from their diet, such as dairy, gluten, or sugar. We would do a series of strength tests at the beginning to get each members overall strength and then we would do a series of strength tests again after 1 week and again after 2 weeks. Our hypothesis would go something like this - the strength of each person would go up as long as the person maintained a stable diet. 

Blog 23 - Experiment Assessment

1. What was your favorite part of the experiment?

          My favorite part of the experiment was doing the setup for it. I enjoyed the process of melting down the agar, pouring it into each dish, waiting for it to dry, and then adding the E. Coli, or in our case, Bacillus Cereus. I just thought that the process was a lot of fun, even though a few mistakes were made along the way. 

2. What did you find challenging?

          What was most challenging for me was making sure that all the little pieces that fit into our experiment came together. What I mean by that is, there were so many different things that we had to keep track of, such as getting the process of adding the bacteria to the agar just right, to questioning whether or not the apples would actually show a change in decomposition rate. All these little things that we had to sort out got a little jumbled together throughout the whole experiment process but it all came together, one way or another, in the end. 

3. What could you have personally done to improve your work?

          I think that I could have personally been more focused on making sure that everything came together. There were a lot of questions that arose throughout the whole experiment process that led to a bit of a sense of confusion about what needed to be done and when. 

4. Is there anything about your experience that I should be aware of? 

          I'm just glad that despite all of the errors made along the way that our results reflect what we assumed in our hypothesis! 

BLOG 22 - Experimental Error

As far as experimental error goes in our experiment, there is a lot that seemed to go wrong along the way. First off, we didn't even end up using E. Coli in our experiment. This was a mistake that we realized we had made after we added Bacillus Cereus to our petri dishes of apple in the beginning. We had not done any research on this bacteria and we did not know if it's effect on the apples would be the same as E. Coli on them. We took a big leap and decided to go with it because all of our plates had already been prepared when we added it and it would have taken at least another 2-3 days of work to fix our mistake, which we did not have time to do. Second of all, a couple of control group petri dishes that we filled with agar before beginning our control group experiment were contaminated with some unknown, outside bacteria. White patches of bacteria appeared in the dishes before any kind of bacteria had even been added. This could have meant that the earlier dishes that contained our apples could have been contaminated as well without our knowing. Also, when measuring the weights of our apples, it is possible that not all of the dried agar was removed from the apple slices which could have effected the numbers that we got in the end. 

Blog 21 - Research Significance

Our group is testing how rapidly apples decompose based on their sugar content when E. Coli bacteria is added to the mix. This is significant because, if our experiment proves that a higher sugar content leads to faster decomposition when sugar-enjoying bacteria are added, then it could be used in things such as dumps. If sugar was added to natural garbage, then the decomposition rate would be much faster and therefore save us a lot of time and space. Our experiment relates to taphonomy, which is the scientific study of decomposition. Applied activities that relate to our group's work so far are just experiments involving decomposition in general.

In fact, here is an experiment design quite like ours but it doesn't use E. Coli.

http://www.sciencefairadventure.com/ProjectDetail.aspx?ProjectID=133

Work in Class on Friday

In class on Friday, our group cut up apple slices and put them into water so as to begin making samples for our control group section of our experiment.

Blog 20 - Preliminary Data

• Summarize your progress with data. Present your information in a table or graph. Add a figure caption for descriptive purposes. (3 sentences)

We are measuring the result of our experiment at the end. On Monday, we will start to dry the apples out so that we can measure their dry mass. We are hoping that our hypothesis will be correct in that the apple slices that had more sugar concentration will weigh less than the slices with less sugar concentration. Therefore, numerical results are yet to be determined. 

Blog 19 - Observations So Far

What have you noticed so far? Are you able to grow the E. coli reliably? Do you have results yet? If so, what are you noticing?

An apple with more sugar concentration, just to see the setup of everything.

So far we have been growing 8 separate dishes of E. Coli. So far, there have been ripples on the agar to show signs of the E. Coli. In the first dish that we tested to grow E. Coli in before we started the whole experiment, there are patches of growth. We have not noticed any direct visual results yet as far as the different in the apples and their sugar saturation, but at the end of the experiment, we shall determine which one decomposed faster based on their dry mass. The apples are doing curious things that we did not expect. They became a bit soupy in the dishes because we could not flip the dishes over. However, the day after they were soupy, everything seemed to have dried up again. This is one error in our experiment that through us off a bit but we are just waiting to see what comes next at this point. 

E. Coli Research Page

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1X1FOZLqyhzhU6LMIHfx9OFUkAWegmY6pjWiITcDtsAs/edit

Here is the link for our groups research.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1P_nsOxjy1i9wqprHfbPXR-u4-ANRP4lRJsofQ9ZKUbk/edit#slide=id.p

Blog 15: E. Coli Background Info

Background information about E. coli. Describe the basic biology of E. coli. Review some key information about this model organism. 

Escherichia Coli, or E. Coli are a bacteria that are found inside intestines of warm-blooded animals. The bacteria are rod shaped. Most E. Coli are completely harmless as well as essential. They help with digestion by releasing B and K vitamins through a process in which the E. Coli helps break down food into usable, digestible nutrients. A couple of bad strains of E. Coli is called O157:H7, E. Coli 0121 and E. Coli 0104:H21. These strains comes from the runoff of fecal matter of other animals. It can leak into water sources, which are then used to supplement animals, and vegetables. If we ingest the meat of such animals or vegetables then we can get E. Coli poisoning which includes symptoms of vomiting and abdominal cramps, and long term effects of kidney failure. E. Coli poisoning occurs when the E. Coli from another organism get into your stomach. A common E. Coli breakout that comes from factory farms is E. Coli from the intestines of cows. In many cases when young children or elderly adults are infected with E. Coli, the poisoning can eventually lead to death because their immune systems are not as strong as an average, healthy adult. 

Blog 14

Lessons Learned From My First Experiment

          What was the favorite part of your experiment?

My favorite part of the experiment was checking the plants everyday. It was fun to see the changes that they went through and how rapidly they grew. Everyday, the plants would look completely different because they grew so rapidly. 

           What did you find challenging?

The most challenging part of this experiment for me was keeping track of our data. It was hard to make sure that we measured each plant like the last. Another thing that was challenging in this experiment was just overall remembering everything that had to be done with the plants everyday because we always needed to water, measure, and take pictures of them.

          What could you have personally done to improve your work?

To improve my work, I personally could have paid better attention to making sure that everything was executed correctly. Since this was our first experiment in the class, and having no experience, it was difficult to make sure that everything was done correctly. For example, in many of our photo's of our experiment, we forgot to put in some sort of unit of measure like a penny or a ruler.

          Is there anything about your experience that I should be aware of?

Overall, I really enjoyed this experience. I have never designed my own science experiment and it was interesting to learn about the process of how one plans, and executes a full science experiment. 

Blog 11

What was your working hypothesis, and what was your prediction?

My groups working hypothesis was that the plants that we watered with light rain pressure would grow taller and faster than the plants that were being watered with heavy rain pressure. Our prediction was that the plants that received heavy rain pressure would either not grow at all, or at least be much shorter than the plants watered with light rain pressure. As it came to turn out, the plants with the heavy rain pressure did grow quite tall, and grew flowers, but they were slightly more crushed down than the plants that were watered lightly. The plants that were watered with light rain pressure grew very slightly taller than the plants that were watered with heavy rain pressure, and their height varied more than the others. 

Graph - Blog 10

Figure 1: This graph shows how rain pressure, either heavy or light, effects the growth in height of the fast plants. The data indicates that the plants that were watered through light water pressure grew taller (5cm), than plants that were watered with heavy rain (4cm). Because the results differ, there are two different groups,  

Experimental Hypothesis and Predictions

My group has hypothesized that the plant that is "rained" on at a slower rate will grow better because steady and gradual is a better condition than fast and abrupt. I, myself, am predicting that the plant that is "rained" on at a slower rate will grow faster than the other. In nature, a slower, plentiful rain always has a far better effect on plants, etc. whereas a sudden rain could lead to washing out plants and animals, causing danger in the ecosystem. I am a little worried that by doing such a sudden rainfall that some plants in that group may not grow, but I think that as long as my group is careful about how much water we add each day (150 mL per plant) that everything should go smoothly. I am not as worried about the condition of the plants that will be "rained" on lightly because the rain will not be so rough as to destroy them when they are just seedlings. I cannot wait to begin this experiment because I am anxious to find what is going to happen, and if my hypothesis in the first sentence is right.

What Will You Measure?

My group will be measuring the effect that a light rain versus a heavy rain has on a plant. Essentially to measure our plants progress, we will be looking at the height of the plants as well as the plants are growing. We will be looking at how fast the opposing plants will be growing, how big they grow, how healthy they look (full vs thin, etc.), etc. Regarding plant measurements, my group will be testing with a total of 12 pots. We are starting off with each pot having 3 seeds in it, so that there is a high chance that we will end up with 12 plants rather than anything lower.

Watering Schedule:

Everyday at 11:25:

Mon - Caroline

Tues - Shivani

Wed - Kennedy

Thurs - Sophie

Fri - Sophie

Sat - Shivani

Sun - Caroline

Experiment Accomplishments So Far

So far in my groups experiment on fast plants, we have gathered out materials and prepared the space for our experiment to take place. We found some buckets and poked holes of different sizes into two of them, then tested each to make sure that they would work. From one streamed a small rain which was very light, from another streamed a heavy rain. After that we found two ring-stands and attached the buckets to them so that we had our structure to water the plants with. Then we prepped the living spaces for the plants. We filled 12 small pots with dirt and put 6 in one box and the other 6 in another box. One box will be the group of plants that we water lightly whereas the other will be the group of plants that we water heavily. Our group still has to plant the fast plants and decide upon how much water we will pour on each plant. So far the experiment is going pretty smoothly though. Below are some pictures of our progress...

The set up so far; to the left is the watering structure.

The buckets of dirt

A watering structure up close