For each story, give five answers:
I) What is the question?
II) What is the person's hypothesis?
III) What is the independent variable?
IV) What is the dependent variable?
V) Was the hypothesis supported by the data, or not?
'The vegetable story'
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Mr. Mikulski's garden club wants to expand its operations this year, and get some student athletes to commit to taking home and cooking fresh vegetables and fruits every week. Many nutrition books say that athletes will be able run, jump, etc. longer before getting tired if they eat fresh food like this. Mr. Mikulski believes that if the athletes take home and cook the fresh food for a month, they will improve their endurance (ability to keep playing).
Mr. Mikulski gave five different athletes and their families fresh food from the garden for one month. He gave another five athletes no such food (they simply ate what they usually would at home). After one month, the athletes who ate the fresh food could play for 20% longer than when they started. The athletes who ate their usual food could play for 11% longer.
'The laundry detergent story'
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Latricia heard that some laundry detergents have too many chemicals in them, and can cause some people's skin to break out in rashes. Sometimes she gets skin rashes on her arms and she doesn't quite know why, but it seems to happen if she wears laundry that came right out of the drier. She believes that washing with a natural detergent (which has less chemicals) will reduce the number of arm rashes that she gets.
For the first two weeks, she washes with her normal detergent, and counts the number of rashes she gets throughout the week. She gets a total of 7 rashes. For the next two weeks, she washes her clothes with the natural detergent (less chemicals). She gets a total of 8 rashes during that time.
A site to communicate HW and other information to the Wildcats who are learning chemistry with Mr. Mikulski!
