Sarah's cup of Tea

graph

2010-06-16T22:16:00.003+10:00

my sister actually suggested that I make a column graph to show the
difference between the results for the males and females.
The males caught the ruler an average of 8.2cm earlier than the females.

tables

2010-06-11T18:17:00.001+10:00

these are my results for Ruler Drop Experiment, as you can see the females failed to catch the ruler a total of eight times. Thanks mina...

Climate Graph

2010-05-12T20:57:00.002+10:00

Here's the climatic graph
Sorry about the quality, I took the photo on my phone

Method:
1. Place bottom of 30cm ruler at top of subjects' hand (0cm near the hand, 30cm at the top)
2. Drop ruler and wait for subject to catch
3. Measure length from top of subjects' thumb to bottom of the ruler
4. Record results in table (as shown in previous post) and any observations
5. Repeat experiment three times for each subject

P.S. Unfortunately I didn't have the time to finish off the girl part of the experiment at school today and I forgot about it yesterday. So apparently writing it on my hand isn't exactly helping me remember.

tomorrow, it's only a day away

2010-05-10T19:22:00.002+10:00

I was actually planning to finish off the girl part of my experiment today
but my memory failed me. Stupid transition from year nine to ten! I will get the hang of it though, don't you worry! & hopefully I will remember to ask my friends to help me out with my experiment tomorrow. I want to finish this experiment as soon as possible so I can go over it and correct it and make adjustments.
Wish me luck

Experiment - Take one

2010-05-03T19:24:00.007+10:00

So I did my first experiment yesterday with the help of youth from my church.
I got 12 boys and 4 girls and here are my results so far

Sorry about the size but I couldn't get it any bigger without it being blurry and even harder to read. I'm planning to finish the rest of the experimenting for the 'females' at school as there's definitely no shortage there

P.S I just noticed that the results for the last three male test subjects got cut off, my bad

Distance or Time?

2010-04-14T20:33:00.003+10:00

I'm hoping to do my experiment before the holidays end. It should take no longer than a day if I can get all 15 males and females over (most likely church friends). I'll also need to get all the teenagers (anyone under 18) to get their parents to write me a note saying that they are allowed to take part in the experiment, or I could write one up and have them sign it. For now i'm going to do some more research on reflex actions and the ruler drop

This experiment is based on the subjects' reaction time, so is this one but it also has a reaction time table to convert your measurement in cm to a reaction time in seconds. This website has a formula that I can use to convert the distance on the ruler to a reaction time. So now i'm thinking that maybe I can use time as one of my variables, hopefully this formula is accurate. What do you think Ms Zhang?

My Experiment

2010-04-10T15:48:00.002+10:00

Aim: To find out which gender has faster reflex actions

Hypothesis: Males have faster reflex actions than females

Independent Variable: Gender

Dependent Variable: Length (cm)

The experiment will be repeated three times for each test subject and there will be 15 males and 15 females.

I want to make sure this is a legit experiment before I go ahead and do it and that both my variables are right in relation to the experiment, so if you could let me know once you've seen this Ms Zhang. Thankyou!

the ruler drop

2010-04-05T18:14:00.001+10:00

Ms Zhang was telling me to have a look at facial reflex actions but i'm not quite sure how I would test that. So far I'm just thinking that the ruler drop test would be my best bet. And since it's a quick experiment I don't think it would be smart to have 'time' as one of the variables, I thought 'distance (cm)' would be better. As in, how many cm have passed before the subject has grabbed the ruler

Accuracy

2010-03-17T20:55:00.003+11:00

So the other day I got thinking, "what if all my test subjects
were the same age for the gender experiment?" I'm guessing it will make the
results more accurate but it'll also be harder to do, what do you think?
Should I go find 15 males and females aged 15/16 or just leave it how it was?

Scientfic Sarah Signing Off

but WHAT is a reflex action?

2010-03-08T20:00:00.003+11:00

A reflex action is a stereotyped (involuntary) motor responseelicited by a defined stimulus.

Unfortunately I only understood parts of that definition but not all of it as a whole so I prefer to go with this one, 'A reflex action is an involuntary reaction caused by a stimilus' for eg. blinking when
someone claps infront of your face or moving your hand away when you touch something very hot or cold.
As i've decided that my SRP will be based on reflex actions I thought it would be best to decide what exactly I'm going to base my experiments on, lately i've been tossing up between age and gender but then I thought "wouldn't testing it on both make it even more accurate?" Then I could narrow it down to what age group and which gender has the fastest reflex actions. So there's my aim:
"To find out which age group and gender has the fastest reflex actions"
Another question though Ms Zhang, does that mean I need 30 separate groups of people for each experiment? Or can I use the same people and get it over and done with all at once?
Scientific Sarah Signing Off

a thankyou to older sisters

2010-03-04T21:55:00.004+11:00

Thanks to my sisters' handy input I am now re-thinking how I'm going to go about doing my experiment. I'm considering testing reflex actions on the basis of age instead of gender or possibly even doing both. I also have to find various other ways of testing it so that I can come to a more accurate conclusion. I'm getting really excited about this, my creative juices are flowing!

Scientific Sarah Signing Off

progress!

2010-03-03T20:10:00.003+11:00

I'm very happy to announce that I started my research a while ago and I was lucky enough to find some information related to my topic. For my SRP i've been wanting to focus on reflex actions between males and females. I'm hoping to test this out on 15 males and 15 females ranging from 14-25 by using tests such as the ruler drop. This will involve me dropping a 30cm ruler from above the subjects' hand and measuring how many cm have passed before they catch it. I'm also hoping to find a few more ways of testing this but so far this is the only website I can find that has helped me in any way. Do you think the site looks ok Ms Zhang?

I'm going to try and update as often as I can in order to get this SRP started.

P.S. I also wanted to try the experiment where you hit the subjects' knee and see if it moves/reacts but i'm not sure if that will help me with my topic, thoughts?

Scientific Sarah Signing Off

sarah's science blog

2010-02-21T21:37:00.003+11:00

Now that we've had our hello's, I'd like to introduce you all to my science blog!
This blog will now be used for my colossal six
month science assignment so I better get cracking. I guess this is my
first official post and I've got a pretty
good idea of what I'll be doing
but I don't want to divulge too much
information! All I know so far is that
it will I will be needing help from my friends in
the youth at church.
Although I'm not quite sure how i'll be testing my theory or what instruments
I'll be needing, MS ZHANG I NEED HELP!

love sarahteaa

2010-02-09T20:12:00.000+11:00

"Hello World!"