Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Dairy vs Nondairy products (on Calcium)
Science Fair Projects are frustrating. My teacher approved of the idea, and I am to start experimenting soon (monday) and I am starting to feel like my experiment isn't valid... My experiment was to find the a ratio of dairy product:daily retainment of calcium. I now think I should change that too comparing dairy to non dairy products into which has more calcium (so as to find if dairy products are truly as good as the dairy industry says it is). I have thought of what I am to experiment with: Silk Soy milk (regular): skim milk. First question: Should I have more variables? as in fruits with calcium and other non dairy products, and more dairy products. Second question: I have no way of measuring the calcium in non milk products (because the calcium amount is on the label) what is a way I could use at my high school that doesn't require shipping or calcium assay (too expensive)? Third question: should I find out how much of the product is retained in the body because I am using the daily retainment as part of the ratio, or should I just change the daily retainment to the daily intake?

thank you (:

Hi,

Sounds like an interesting idea! For your first question, you could experiment with more types of nondairy vs. dairy milk, such as almond milk or dairy 2% or whole milk. Regarding your 2nd and 3rd questions, I'm not sure how you would measure the calcium levels in milk with a cheap procedure or how you would measure "daily retainment..." If you type in "how to measure calcium in milk," some procedures involving spectroscopy come up, but I think that might be the calcium assay you're talking about. If you're stuck, I might suggest perusing Science Buddies for some alternative ideas involving milk such as this project: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... rent-milks
Or this project: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ce#summary

I hope this helps! If any other experts have any input feel free to contribute!

Elena