Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

We are making cupcakes. The egg function we are trying to replace is leavening. We are about to complete the data table. However, I am not understanding the experimental procedure #5. why does it call for making it three times. can you give an example of how to fill out the data table.
Our substitue 1 is baking powder and oil / substitute 2 is apple cider vinegar/ substitute 3 is orange juice and baking powder

This is how I think it suppose to look, is it correct?:

Egg, Baking Powder & Oil, Apple Cider Vinegar, Orange juice and Baking powder

Trial 1 ? whatever the measurement is? ? ?
Trial 2
Trial 3
Sum of Trials
Average of Trials

Hello science5478:

What a great experiment to be working on! You are on the right track. You want to perform your experiment 3 times per condition (i.e. egg and 3 different leavening agents) in order to be able to have statistically significant data. The more times you perform an experiment per condition the more likely you will get an accurate average of what really would happen. When performing experiments there will be outliers, measurements farthest away from the average. However, the more results you get the better you are able to figure out the middle or what you would typically see rather than outliers.

Therefore you should have a table as you have set up below with a total of 12 results - 3 different trials at the 4 different conditions (eggs, sub 1, sub 2, sub 3). After you have the results you will find the sum and average of the 4 different conditions.

I hope this help. Please let us know if you have any other questions.

Thanks,
klhjbh62604

Hello,
While klhjbh62604 has given you a really good start, I just wanted to add one thing. Repeating the trials ensures that the results didn't occur by chance. For example, if you flip a coin once, and it lands on heads, it would be irrational to assume that because it happened during your experiment, to assume that the result means that every time you flip a coin it will land on heads. But, if you don't repeat the experiment multiple times, according to your data, you have to conclude that every time a penny is flipped, it lands on heads. But, if you repeated the experiment, you would find that there is and equal probability of the coin landing on heads or tails, not a 100% chance that it would land on heads. The coin landing on heads on the first trial was purely caused by chance, but you would not be able to conclude that. And, therefore, truly, the data would be wrong. So the reason why we repeat experiments is to prove that our conclusion was not caused by chance.

Hope this helps!
Meg