Stopping Spoilage

[devona]

Hello

My daughter is in the 3rd grade and this is the first Science Project she(we) is attemping to do. I chose something rather easy . We are at the point now for the research report and hypothesis. I am at a lost, I don't think we have enough for the report. According the the book I got, we just cut the apples and wait for them to turn brown and add some lemon juice to see if that slows down the browning process. HELP!!!!

[Grace]

Hi,

Based upon what you have said so far, it seems like your hypothesis would be something along the lines of "Lemon juice will slow down the browning process of cut apples." If you have not tested this yet, then I have some suggestions for carrying out the experiment:

- If you want to have more data and results, your daughter can compare several different kinds of apples, with or without lemon juice (instead of just one kind of apple).

- For any one type of apple, cut it in half. Put lemon juice on one half, and maybe you could just put water on the other half. You want to compare two halves of the same apple because different apples, even if they are the same kind, could have their own quirky differences.

- In the report, you want to include data and results from the experiment. One idea is to take pictures of the apples at different time points. Perhaps you could use these photos to compare browning between different apples and between treatments of lemon juice and water.

For more detailed help about the research report and hypothesis, check out the Project Guide here:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/mentorin ... ndex.shtml

- Grace

[vtrip]

It looks like you are testing whether or not lemon juice in some way affects the browning of apples. Like the previous post, you may want to read the science buddies section on formulating a hypothesis. However I have a few tips for your project.

1.) Depending on how simple or complicated you want to be, you can test different kinds of apples, but what is more important is that you do a few replicates of each experiment. So this means if you are just testing one type of apple, then use about 3 treated with lemon juice and 3 treated with water or your control solution. Also, be sure that you cut your apples in half and use one half of the same apple for your two treatments, this will make your results better.

2.) Definitely take pictures at different time points throughout your study because it will illustrate (very clearly) what you are trying to study. I would recommend taking pictures at 1 hr, 3 hrs, 5, hrs, and then 10 hrs/overnight so that you can see a clear progression of browning. However, if you find that these time points aren't that good, and that your apples are browning too quickly or not fast enough that you can adjust the times accordingly.

I hope this helps.