Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hi,

I am trying to help my son(4th grade) with his science fair project and we have ran into a problem.

His questions is: Which foods will mold the fastest: Bread, Cheese, or Strawberries?

The hypothesis he came up with is: The strawberries will mold the fastest, because they don't have as many preservatives as the bread and cheese.

His teacher sent his hypothesis back and said it needs to be written as a "If/Then" statement.

How would we rewrite his hypothesis as a if/then statement?

Thank you

Hi Marlettabelton!

To make your hypothesis an "If/Then" statement, you will need to add a small part at the beginning of your original hypothesis so that it sounds like "If I do this to my variables, then this will happen because ..." For yours, it could be "If I leave bread, cheese, and strawberries in the open air, then the strawberries will mold the fastest because..." The first part could be different depending on how you plan to let your foods mold. Hope this helps and if you have any more questions, feel free to ask.

Fiona

Hi!

Writing a hypothesis as an If/Then statement is used to formalize them. In your case, I believe that writing your hypothesis as an If/Then statement would look something like: If preservative level is related to molding, then strawberries will mold the fastest because they do not contain as many preservatives as bread or cheese.

Hope this was helpful and good luck with the rest of your experiment!