Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

HELP NEEDED
Results for Candy Chromatography experiment did not match up. We would like to know why.
We need an answer ASAP!
Thank you.

WE NEED AN ANSWER BY TODAY, MARCH 23RD. THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

Hi Leila,

I’m sorry we did not get back to you before your deadline yesterday, but hopefully the following information will be helpful:

I think you did this excellent project from the Science Buddies Website:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... #procedure

I’m not quite sure what you meant by “did not match up”. The procedure specifies running 5 chromatography paper strips for each sample. Do you mean that the results from the 5 strips are not identical? Or, did you see no separation of the dyes in the M & M’s? Or, what are you concerned about? If you can describe the problem that you observed and what color candy you were testing, I might have some specific advice.

However, if you did your experiment and obtained results, then your project was successful. It’s OK if you designed a carefully controlled experiment and then obtained unexpected results. Results in a science project are empirical; in other words there’s no right or wrong answer. The results are what happened.

Therefore, you should report what happened and then provide an explanation in the analysis section. Let me know more details if there are any other questions.


Donna Hardy