Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hi,

I finally came up with a question for my project candy chromatograpy. (What types of dyes are used in M&M' candy shells?) Now I'm getting ready to do my research and I'm still lost at this point.

I'm going through the project guide and trying to follow it. I chose the candy chromatography project idea from sciencebuddies. So do I use the questions that are listed in this experiment to begin my research or do I need to come up with my own questions for this?

The questions are:
Why do different compounds travel different distances on the piece of paper?
How is an Rf value useful?
What is chromatography used for?

Thanks for your help!

Hi,

Great project! The way I see it, those questions are general background question to make sure you know your topic well. In other words, these are concepts you should understand before beginning your project. However, you are not limited to them.

Try to come up with some questions regarding your project. You should try to learn as much as you can about chromatography, specifically in regards to your project. Consider questions pertaining to m&m's which aren't adressed here.

Usually, my rule of thumb is to have enough research to be able to formulate some kind of hypothesis about what will happen. Once you can do that, you're all set!

Hope you have fun,

Manjinder

Hello,

Thank you. I have come up with a few of my own questions so far. So I'll try to come up with a few more too. This stuff is new to me. This is my first time ever doing a science fair project.

Thanks for your help.