Upcoming Project

[deleted-303526]

Hi, I have an upcoming science fair in a few weeks and I decided to do the topic, 'Honesty: How Prevalent Is It?', and I'm excited to do it, only I have a few questions about it.

1) When the procedure to do it said, 'Remember to count the number of cookies at the start and (the money donated) end of each session,' what do they mean by session? Like a specific period of time?

2) I'm not entirely sure what locations I should pick. Should they be close or far apart?

3) Should the participants I choose know what I'm doing this for, or should I keep it to myself? It said the goal of the project is to figure out how well the honor system works for donation of a worthy cause.

I'm naturally a little nervous because I've never done a project before, so could you give me a few tips on how to do this project? Thanks!!

[deleted-249560]

Let's see if this helps a little. The procedure as described suggests you'd be putting the cookies & boxes in two different places on different days. One place is supervised by an adult and one is not. For discussion, let's say the supervised place is the school office and the unsupervised place is in the hallway near the cafeteria. Of course you would discuss the locations with your teacher and the school administrators and they'll help you pick two spots.

1) A 'session' behind when you put the box in place and ends when you pick it up. As the project is written, it sounds like the author is suggesting that a session is one school day. So you might put the box in the school office at the beginning of the day and pick it up when you go home. The next day you'd put the box near the cafeteria in the morning and then pick it up on your way home.

2) If the locations are not used at the same time it may not matter whether they're far apart or not. They should be in high traffic areas though - you want a lot of people to see the donation boxes. In a perfect world they would be two locations where the same number of people and the same types of people would see them. For example, if you put one in near the music room, perhaps only kids taking music lessons will see it. Can you think of places where everyone goes, sooner or later?

3) The school administration and your teachers will know the real reason, but no - don't tell anyone else. People will change their behavior if they know it's really a test of the honor system.

At the end of the test I still wouldn't announce to the school what you were testing, but I would post (with permission, of course) a poster thanking everyone for their donations, how much was collected and where it went.

[deleted-303526]

OK, thanks, now I only have a couple more questions.

1) Should I wait a certain amount of time for someone to notice the donation boxes?

2) Let's say if I was to set the donation box out one day, near a store or building, unsupervised. What should I do if I should see that the baked goods and/or the donation box is gone?

3) I actually don't go to public school, I'm homeschooled and we have a seminar every Tuesday. Will that interfere with the sessions?

Thanks! I appreciate the advice!!

[deleted-249560]

You're going to need a supervised place where some responsible adult will be around as one of the locations. Are you friendly with any store owners? Maybe one of your parents works in an office? They could take the box and put it near their desk for a while or put it by the copier machine. However you pick places you need to:

a) Find some basic location that has both a supervised and an unsupervised location available.
b) Has the sort of demographic you want to test. Are you testing adults? Kids? Both? If it's kids, an office wouldn't be useful.
c) You have permission from the property owner to conduct the test.

Let's say for example that your family is friendly with the owner of a laundromat. With their permission you could put it by the cash register for a few days. After that's done, maybe take it away for a day or two (to let people get hungry for cookies again) and put it in the area where people wait for their self-wash laundry to get done. Leave it there the same amount of time as you left it by the register.

No one will know who left it, so you can just quietly go into the location and check the status of the box without making anything of it. Don't, for example, start talking loudly about what delicious cookies they are and that a really smart kid must have put this here. Just walk in, look to see if the cookies need to be refilled, then leave.

These experiment sessions will have to be arranged with some store owner or some other adult that manages a space where the public walks in. I don't see how your specific schedule makes much of a difference.