Answer 1:
You have an interesting idea. Now, as a
scientist, you need a hypothesis to test. Your
hypothesis is a guess about how people respond to
the color of the ice cream. For
example: “People
will prefer _____ ice cream compared to ____ ice
cream.” (Fill in the blanks with your idea.)
Once you have that, we can work on your plan
for testing your hypothesis. Without a
hypothesis, you won’t really know what questions
to ask or how to organize things. A common
mistake is not having a clear idea about what
you’re testing.
Meanwhile think about things like the order.
Can you see a problem with everyone getting red
first and white last, for example? A lot of
people make mistakes like this, which would mean
their test was unfair.
Your question 6 is a good one. I don’t know
how many colors you are testing, but people will
probably get confused if they can’t write down
something right away. At the end, you can ask
them their favorite.
If you are just interested in kids’ opinions,
you can include only kids. If you want to know
what everyone prefers, you have to ask a wide
variety of people.
It’s a good idea to think about how you will
make sense of your results before you start your
experiment. What will your graph look like?
Obviously, you do not know whether people will
like blue better than red, but think about what
graph would tell the story. Try making a sketch
of a graph that you would see if your hypothesis
were correct. Not thinking about this ahead of
time is a common mistake
Have you tried coloring the ice cream yet? It
might be hard to get the color blended in without
melting the ice cream. Ice cream that has melted
and refrozen is different from ice cream that
didn’t melt. If you know someone with a shaved
ice machine, you might have better luck coloring
one color of flavored syrup. Another option is
to
color milk or yogurt
Here is a really good summary of other
experiments that tested whether color influenced
how people reacted to flavor:
coltaste
To answer question 3: I am a professor of
biology. I studied biology in college and
graduate school. All of that education took 12
years. I worked in a lab at Montana State
University for 2 years. I worked at UCSB and the
National Ecology Center in Santa Barbara for 2
years, then came to Milwaukee in 1998 to teach
biology at a college.
I look forward to hearing from you soon.
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