Science Fair Topic

[cobra]

Hey, I'm trying to join in a summer program called GHP. I had to do an abstract on experiment for the field of Biology. i was wondering if anyone had any good suggestions on semi-sophisticated experiments so i can get into GHP. you could just list a topic, and i'll find out the rest. Thanks

[RyanJ]

Hey, I'm trying to join in a summer program called GHP. I had to do an abstract on experiment for the field of Biology. i was wondering if anyone had any good suggestions on semi-sophisticated experiments so i can get into GHP. you could just list a topic, and i'll find out the rest. Thanks

 

It all depends on the topics in Biology you are interested in and on how technical you'd like the work to be

 

Heres one I have done a few times and shuld be relativly easy as long as the equiptment is provided for you

 

Testing the effects of Ph, Heat, Preassure (May not be feasible) and concentrations on the effectiveness of enzymes.

 

You could do a few test experiments for an enzyme in each catogory, take for example: Ph (Its the first one on my list ).

 

You could test it with a range of acidity and alkelinity to see at which the enzyme works best. Then you'd move onto the other topic e.g. temperature. Test this the same way and record your results

 

Then you could make a conclusion as too the best conditions required for the enzyme to work with the reasons why... you could even go nuts and try it with multiple enzymes.

 

I did this a few times as I ahve said and this experiemnt has never failed to get me an A* grade in my school.

 

As I said it all depends on what you like doing and are good at - I'm shure there are other people who can suggest more experiments for you to do, this jus thappens to be one of my favourites!

 

Cheers &b Good Luck,

 

Ryan Jones

[cobra]

Hey! thanks alot! That's an interesting one.. i'll have to loook into that deeper, but that is tons of help. I know how to do Science Fair projects, but just havent done much with them. what topic would be good if you were to do it on the plants...one that wouldnt be as simple as one like "what is the effect of _____ on ______? just trying to figure out alot and trying to pic one... but thanks Ryan, lots of help....

[cobra]

oh, and by the way, ryan... how did you do the pressure measuring for enzymes and which enzyme did you use? can you give me a little details, not alot though.... thanks

[RyanJ]

oh, and by the way, ryan... how did you do the pressure measuring for enzymes and which enzyme did you use? can you give me a little details, not alot though.... thanks

 

In most cases preassure ipnot one you'll be able to do as the apparatus are quite hard to get hold off

 

When I did this experiemnt I did it with catalase and diliuted Hydrogen Peroxide.

The catalase enzyme was from pieces of potato (equaly and accurraly cut) and I then measured out a set ammount of Hydrogen Peroxide and did what needed to be done to the enzyme (E.g. heated the potato slice) and then added it to the Hydrogen Peroxide and measured how long it took for the reaction to finish (the bubbles to stop comming).

 

Warning: Be very careful with Hydrogen Peroxide - it can be nasty stuff to get on your skin so wear gloves

 

As for other enzymes I'll leave you to do some research on that part - there are literally thousands to choose from. One you may want to try is carbohydrase - oit breaks down carbohydrates and its the reason why if you "suck" bread for a while in your mouth you get a sugary taste!

 

If you need any help or more information then post back here and I'm shure someone will be able to help you (I'll try but I'm no master even though I've done this experiment 3, 4 times I still make errors )

 

Cheers & Good luck,

 

Ryan Jones

 

Edit: Here we go, have a look at the links below for informaiton on those two enzymes.

 

Catalase, Carbohydrase and more on enzymes

[cobra]

HEY Ryan... thanks a ton, once again..! SO, when you did it..i see that it seems as though your experiment was on what combination of pH and heat made the fastest reaction.... and you used...just heat as the varible? i'm getting the basic idea of this... and you determined that there was catalase in potatoes? and you kept your constant as the hydrogen peroxide? ok....that's alot.. you're of great help... the problem about all this is that i havent taken AP Bio.... (college course, if you're from UK) and i've only taken one course of bio.... well, thanks alot

[ecoli]

That doesn't matter too much. You still should have covered the basic info about enzymes, and what you don't know, you can look up. Its all out there on the web. But if you want to get involved in a science fair, then you'll need sources anyway, right?

[cobra]

alright... yeah, i know...everythings on the net... and yeah..... also, a possibility would be temperature, cold/warm/hot, and you could keep one of those constant, and change the acids, and then determine from there, right? it's just a slightly different experiment, just changed from the basis...

[RyanJ]

alright... yeah, i know...everythings on the net... and yeah..... also, a possibility would be temperature, cold/warm/hot, and you could keep one of those constant, and change the acids, and then determine from there, right? it's just a slightly different experiment, just changed from the basis...

 

Correct

 

Remember for this to be a fair test then you must only change one variable at a time and keep everything else as close too ideantical as possible

 

You shuld probably make a prediciton for each experiment too - I cna help you with that if you like (I got full marks for this part.)

 

Also, do not be afraid of errors (Just keep them to a minimal) - errors will help you to show you've thought about the errors and that if you did the experiment again you'd know wheere you went wrong. I know this is hard to believe but if you got the experiment perfect with no errors then you'd get less marks than if you had one with a few errors. The reason being you had to explain the errors and work out how you could fix them. You don't have to do this but I did and it took the longest part of my time

 

This experiment has so many different ways and things to try thats why I always use this. I've tried different types of acid, different strengths, same with bases. I tried a combination of heat and acid later after I finished everything else... Like I said the list is all but endless.

You could even try using different foods and comparing the speeds of those! I had a great time doing this experiment and I hope you will too

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jones

[cobra]

HEy THanks once again... I think i'll stick to this topic, since no one else has given me any other topic... BUt, it does sound interesting and i basically have the idea about how to do it. But, i'm not doing the actually experiment,...just the abstract...that's all that's need for the GHP i'm trying to join... well, thanks again.... if any one had any more topics to recommend, i'd appreciate it...

[cobra]

by the way..if you WERE to make a hypothesis..... what would you say? if you were to do heat, your hypothesis was just simply be "the more heat applied to the __(enzyme) the faster the reaction occurs (or the enzyme works more effectively....

[RyanJ]

by the way..if you WERE to make a hypothesis..... what would you say? if you were to do heat, your hypothesis was just simply be "the more heat applied to the __(enzyme) the faster the reaction occurs (or the enzyme works more effectively....

 

OK, I'll give you a bit of help with those - they cna be quite annoying the first few times

 

[*]Heat: Rate of reaction increases to a point when the enzyme denatures.

[*]Ph: Low and High Ph denatures the enzymes - find the optimum Ph

[*]Preassure: Effective to a point and then the enzymes get crushed.

[*]Ammount of substrate: Increases untill all the enzymes are constantly catalyzing then it can increase no further.

[*]Ammount of enzymes: Increases untill all the substrate has been used up then it can rise no more.

 

Hope that helps

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jones

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jone

[cobra]

hey, so are those that you gave me....hypotheses? right now, i'm feeling empty headed with bio stuff

[RyanJ]

hey, so are those that you gave me....hypotheses? right now, i'm feeling empty headed with bio stuff

 

No those are are what you will find as your results but you can easily make them into a hypothesis

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jones

[cobra]

so.....since you say what you gave me are results, then when you put heat : ...... that means, if you're increasing the heat, rate of reaction increases and same with everything else...if ___ is increased, then that's what happens?

[RyanJ]

so.....since you say what you gave me are results, then when you put heat : ...... that means, if you're increasing the heat, rate of reaction increases and same with everything else...if ___ is increased, then that's what happens?

 

I'll give you heat results - if I give you anything else then that will ruin the experiment.

 

As heat increases so does the rate of reaction untill the point where the enzymes beguin to denature after this point the rate of reaction will rapidly fall to zero.

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jones

[cobra]

thanks... i'm working on abstract right now.... thanks a ton! i have all the info i need..

[RyanJ]

thanks... i'm working on abstract right now.... thanks a ton! i have all the info i need..

 

Great! Hope it all works out good for you!

 

Cheers & Good Luck,

 

Ryan Jones