Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

My project is does age affect the ability to detect salt? I don't know what my variables would be. Please help!! Thank you!

Take a look here: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ndex.shtml

There are a couple links to articles describing variables. See if those help you out. If you still have questions, let us know.

Mike

There are independent and dependent variables:
independent= the constants that are being tested.....so in your case, it would be the age groups being tested
dependent= the experimental data.....so, what are you measuring in what units?= ability to detect salt

good luck,
scienceexpert123

The variables of your project are age and salt.
The controlled variable is age.

In addition to what others have said, your controlled variables are what you keep constant for the experiment. You'd want to make sure you give each person the same kind and amount of salt and use the same procedure each time, for example.

I like to remember it this way:

The independent variable is like an independent teenager, he doesn't want to depend on anyone! He is reckless and does crazy things to see what will happen. (the cause)

The dependent variable is the outcome of what the independent teenager does (the effect). In other words, the dependent variable may DEPEND on the independent variable (in some cases the cause and effect aren't related, but that is what you are trying to determine). If the independent teenager is trying to see whether the amount of sleep he gets affects his grades, sleep is the independent variable and his grades are the dependent variable (they might depend on the amount of sleep).

You aren't necessarily able to control the outcome. But you can control certain variables across a set of experiments. If the teenager wanted to be sure that sleep was truly what affected his grade, he would need to make sure that he did the same things every day at the same time, ate the same amount and kind of food each day (especially no caffeine!), etc.