Doing some experiments

[newatheist]

Hi,
I don't know if any of have heard of it, but a long time ago some children in the US or Canada did some experiments with ribena (the juice) and it turned out that the drink didn't have the amount of vitamin C that was advertised (or something along these lines), the company ended up paying a fine.

This means that the experiments carried out by those children are valid, and thats what I wan't to do, I really want to do a credible experiment, something that follows proper procedures.

Thats where I need some help. I can't think of an appropriate project, something I could do with my limited scientific knowledge and limited resources. Please tell me if you guys have any ideas. O0

[Matt]

Hi,
I don't know if any of have heard of it, but a long time ago some children in the US or Canada did some experiments with ribena (the juice) and it turned out that the drink didn't have the amount of vitamin C that was advertised (or something along these lines), the company ended up paying a fine.

This means that the experiments carried out by those children are valid, and thats what I wan't to do, I really want to do a credible experiment, something that follows proper procedures.

Thats where I need some help. I can't think of an appropriate project, something I could do with my limited scientific knowledge and limited resources. Please tell me if you guys have any ideas. O0

Broadly what interests you the most...

Physics
Chemistry
Biology
Psychology

[newatheist]

Broadly what interests you the most...

Physics
Chemistry
Biology
Psychology
Biology

[Matt]

Biology

OK then I'd suggest growing runner beans in jars.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Fun-Classroom-Activities-to-Interest-Children-in-Plants

It's simple enough for young kids to do but for the twist you'll be growing half your plants under one set of conditions and half under another.

You'll want a dozen or so in each set and ideally you'll be blinded as to whihc is in whihc set until the reveal at the end of the experiment. You'll measure the plants every day and be able to plot averages and ranges for each set of growing conditions.

Some things you could compare.

Tap water vs water that had been heated in a microwave in a palstic container. (a classic (http://www.snopes.com/science/microwave/plants.asp))

Growing in tap water vs bottled mineral water.

Measure the effectiveness of your own urine as a fertiliser perhaps vs baby bio.

See if music promotes growth. (another classic (http://www.miniscience.com/projects/plantmusic/index.html))

See if plant growth is affected by magnetic fields. With reference to magnet therapy.

See if you can reproduce this (http://homeopathy4health.wordpress.com/2007/12/20/homeopathic-dilutions-and-plant-growth-there-is-an-effect-and-no-placebo/) experiement which claims that homeopathy can stimulate plant growth. You should have great fun potentising a 45x solution of wait for it.... water!

Anyway a few cheap and cheerful options there.

[Trinoc]

Carrying on the growing things theme ... how about something which grows and seeds very quickly and is small enough to grow in jars (any suggestions?), then subject different jars to different temperatures, sunlight, salinity etc., and see whether you can get them to evolve into different strains adapted to their environments. Then ask the creationists in the class how it happened.

[newatheist]

Carrying on the growing things theme ... how about something which grows and seeds very quickly and is small enough to grow in jars (any suggestions?), then subject different jars to different temperatures, sunlight, salinity etc., and see whether you can get them to evolve into different strains adapted to their environments. Then ask the creationists in the class how it happened.
That sounds quite interesting.

[Matt]

What you'd need for that is many generations, as such a short life cycle. Fecundity is also helpful.

C elegans for example

http://www.wormclassroom.org/ac/celegansModel.html

If you want to stick to plants then Arabidopsis thaliana (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabidopsis_thaliana) is apparently popular. Look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_organism for other suggestions.

However, I wouldnt; expect dramatic results within the span of a short experiment.

Creationists will say that all you've acheived is the selection of traits already present in the genome and nothing novel. Certainly if you acheive speciate in a controlled environment it'll be a first.