Experiment Design

[ObaidK]

Effects of Exercise: Changes in Carbon Dioxide Output
The basic chemical reaction in cellular respiration is: C6H12O6 + 6 O2 --> 6 CO2 + 6 H2O + 36 ATP (energy)
Therefore, the change in CO2 should be dependent upon either O2 or C6H12O6.
We plan to study change in CO2 first by changing O2 then by changing C6H12O6
My variation of this project is: Will the change in oxygen and glucose affect the rate of carbon dioxide during exercise?
We plan to test this by showing:
- Change in Oxygen shown by:
1) Gym vs Park:
[5 minutes of running in the park
5 minutes of treadmill in a gym (closed space)]
2) Aerobic vs Anaerobic Exercise (Running vs. Weightlifting)
- Change in Glucose shown by:
1) 5 minute exercise in three situations:
After meal
Without meal
After a quick snack
- Also, Athlete vs. Non-Athlete:
Do conditioned athletes take longer to start producing additional CO2 with moderate exercise? Do they recover to normal levels faster after exercise?


*Any feedback would be appreciated.

[SciB]

Hi,

This is a good and interesting project, but I have a couple of questions about your procedure. I understand that you chose oxygen level and sugar intake as your two independent variables, and I assume that your dependent variable is going to be CO2 output. How are you going to measure CO2 production accurately?

You plan to have people run in a park and compare them to people running on a treadmill in the gym. Are you assuming that there will be a higher concentration of oxygen in the park? How will you prove that? Also, how are you going to make sure that the effort level on the treadmill is identical to that of people running?

The second variable you plan to test is glucose level, but what do you mean by 'meal' and 'snack'? I would just test two conditions--say 30 minutes after eating a candy bar compared to no food. Your subjects should not have eaten prior to the test for 4 hours so that their blood glucose should be at basal levels.

Another question is how many people should you test for each condition and what age range you should use. Also, as you suggested by your question, an athlete is probably going to have a different lung capacity and heart rate from a couch potato and these physiological factors will affect the CO2 output. Unless you want to compare athletes to non-athletes, I would try to recruit volunteers who are about the same age and activity level. I don't think it matters whether they are male or female but that also would be an interesting question--whether gender affects CO2 output.

Good luck with the study and do keep us posted on your progress and results.

Sybee