Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

We conducted the apple experiment "How food wrappings affect spoilage?" . We used a digital kitchen scale to weigh apples immediately after cutting and immediately after removing them from the wrappings etc after the 6 days. All weights increased which seemed odd. Thoughts on why this happened?

Good evening.

You picked (pun intended) a great apple project! I can think of a few things that might cause this.

1. Digital kitchen scales are...not very precise. However, most of the time, they don't have to be right? If you put in a gram or two more of flour or sugar or an extra ounce of meat into a sandwich it won't really change the outcome of your cake or sandwich.

2. You had a lot of spoilage. Mold and bacteria can add weight.

3. Your fridge had a lot of condensation and moisture. This would have seeped into the apples over time.

These are just a few ideas. This isn't a comprehensive list of course because anything could have happened. What is most important here is that you have a good time and are critically thinking about the experiment itself. The outcome is not nearly as important as the process and learning. By reaching out and asking it shows that you did a lot of thinking on this, but just got a bit stumped. I congratulate you on a job well done.

Please reach out if you have any further questions.

Elizabeth