Jolly Rancher Science Inquiry - Period 2 I. FORMING THE QUESTION AND HYPOTHESIS A. Background Information The purpose of this investigation is to see if there is a link between the senses of taste and smell. We learned in elementary school that taste and smell are senses. There are five senses: sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing. In class, we shared our experiences with smell and taste combined. Ryan has experienced less ability to taste his food when he had a stuffy nose. 13 other students have had similar experiences. Nicole has noticed that when she eats with a blindfold on, she can taste her food even better. Six students have not noticed any difference in their ability to taste food regardless of circumstance. 14 students, when forced to eat something distasteful, have plugged their noses to get the food down. Plugging their noses helped all of them to swallow their food. In our research, we learned that taste occurs on the tongue (Livingston, Biesty, Martin, Parker, Gray, Schneider, and Chudler). When someone is sick, food tastes differently (Saab, p. 69). As we eat, tiny taste buds that cover our mouths detect tiny particles in our food, called "flavorants" (Parker, p. 25). Most taste buds lie beneath the tongue (Biesty, p. 20). Taste buds are located next to open spaces of the epithelium - the outer lining of the tongue and mouth (Gray, p. 1082). The tongue tastes four core flavors: bitter, sour, salty, and sweet (Parker, p. 28). If you put sugar on the tip of your tongue, it will taste sweet; if placed on the side of the tongue, it will have an "off" taste; on the back of the tongue, it will taste badly (Schneider, p. 99). The salivary glands release saliva which breaks down food. Saliva moves around the tongue to enhance flavor (Gray, p. 815). When you smell, it connects you best to your environment (Brynie, p. 24). We smell through our noses (Platt, p. 31). Smells are scent molecules that are taken into your nose by breathed in air (Parker, p. 29). These molecules can be called "odorants," which are taken in by our nostrils (Saab, p. 70). The air that these odorants are carried by then enters the lungs (Schneider, p. 106). When you smell things, the molecules dissolve into moisture and the cells become stimulated, which then send messages to the brain (Janulaw, et al., p. 612). A person with a good sense of smell can recognize up to 10,000 different odors (Brynie, p. 24). There's a place in the nose (above the mouth) that is called the
nasal chamber. Above the nasal chamber, smells are detected by hairy spots called olfactory epithelia (Parker, p. 25). There are some people who have no sense of smell. This abnormality is called "anosmia" ("Are There People with No Sense of Smell?"). A lot of the taste people experience comes not from the taste buds, but from the nose (Brynie, p. 25). What you think about the taste of a meal is a combination between smell, taste, and touch (Parker, p. 29). The nose helps people figure out various properties of food as we eat. This is considered part of "taste" (Gray, p. 818). As we eat, the nose smells many different odors in the back of the mouth (Parker, p. 26). Sweet, salty, sour, and bitter are four tastes that we can taste without using our sense of smell (Schneider, p. 98). B. Forming the Question Our inquiry question is: How does plugging versus unplugging your nose affect the accuracy of identifying the flavor of a Jolly Rancher? When doing this experiment, we plan to taste Jolly Ranchers with our eyes closed, and identify flavors when our noses are plugged, then unplugged. C. Hypothesis Three students predict that when we test JRs, we will find that it does not make a difference whether the nose is plugged or unplugged. The reason they think the experiment will turn out this way is that you taste with your taste buds, so it should not make a difference whether the nose is plugged or not. 22 students predict that it will make a difference. The reason: you can smell the flavor before you taste it; so smelling helps to identify flavors.
II. DESIGNING THE INVESTIGATION A. Materials blindfold Jolly Ranchers (JR) - 5 JRs per TS Test Subjects (TS) Pencil Data Table Safety Considerations: 1. Choking hazard in this experiment! Be careful with Test Subjects while they are tasting Jolly Ranchers. 2. Wash hands before handing TS Jolly Ranchers to prevent contamination from you to your TSs. B. Procedures Step 1. Gather materials: blindfold for TS, 5 JRs (different flavors), pencil and blank data table. Blindfold TS BEFORE setting up materials at the testing station; have TS face AWAY from materials. Lay materials out on table in front of TS on top of a paper towel. Step 2. Tester washes his/her hands. (Safety!!) Step 3. At the testing station, Tester unwraps one JR and records actual flavor on data table, gives JR to TS while explaining that the JR is unwrapped and that the TS will taste it for 10 seconds, and spit JR into wrapper after 10 seconds and hand back to Tester, keeping eyes closed / blindfolded. Step 4. Tell TS to put JR into mouth; after 10 seconds, tell TS to spit out JR into wrapper while keeping eyes closed. TS guesses flavor of JR, and Tester records guessed flavor in data table. TESTER SHOULD NOT RESPOND TO GUESSED FLAVOR IN ANY WAY. Step 5. Repeat Steps 3-4 for the other 4 flavors. Step 6. Repeat Steps 3-5 while the TS plugs his/her nose.
Independent Variable: Plugging nose versus unplugging nose Dependent Variable: Accuracy rate of identifying the flavor of a Jolly Rancher Controlled Variables (constants): Each person will test the same 5 JRs with nose plugged, then unplugged. Amount of time that TS has JR in mouth Keeping eyes closed for all tests When nose is plugged, keep it plugged the entire time. Tester does not tell test subject flavors in advance. Control: Actual flavor of Jolly Rancher Name Trial # Actual Flavor Plugged Guess Plugged Correct? Unplug Guess Unplug Correct? III. COLLECTING AND PRESENTING DATA A. Data Table(s) Flavors guessed compared to actual flavors of Jolly Ranchers, tasted when noses were plugged versus unplugged Name Actual Flavor Plugged Guess Plugged Correct? Unplug Guess Sarah BR BR Y BR Y C W N A N A A Y C N Gladys W Strawberry N W Y BR Blueberry N G N C C Y Raspberry N G Strawberry N G Y Unplug Correct?
Ben G W N G Y A C N W N C G N C Y BR G N BR Y W BR N A N Sam BR C N BR Y G G Y A N W A N A N A W N A Y C BR N W N Azucena W A N W Y C C Y G N BR BR Y C N Zach W W Y C N BR BR Y BR Y C C Y C Y AJ G G Y BR N C A N C Y A C N A Y BR BR Y G N Shelby BR BR Y BR Y A C N A Y C A N C Y Evan C C Y C Y BR W N BR Y Elie C G N W N A A Y C N BR G N BR Y G C N G Y Isabel BR BR Y W N C G N C Y W W Y BR N G C N G Y John W A N W Y G A N G Y A W N BR N C BR N A N
BR C N C N Matt H C C Y C Y BR BR Y BR Y Claire C C Y C Y BR BR Y BR Y A A Y W N Vincent G BR N C N BR W N BR Y W C N W Y C G N G N Ethan C W N C Y W C N C N BR C N C N Collin C W N C Y G A N G Y BR A N BR Y Malik BR BR Y BR Y C C Y C Y W W Y G N Luis U G BR N BR N C C Y C Y BR BR Y A N Henry C BR N BR N W C N C N G BR N G Y BR C N W N Alyssa W W Y C N BR BR Y W N G G Y W N A A Y BR N C W N G N Luis M G A N G Y BR G N BR Y A W N A Y
W G N W Y C BR N C Y Bidi G C N G Y BR W N C N C C Y BR N Abraham BR C N BR Y W C N W Y A W N C N G BR N A N C A N A N Angeles BR BR Y G N W W Y C N C A N A N Lexly BR BR Y W N C W N C Y W C N A N Tameka G A N G Y A A Y C N C C Y Blueberry N BR Blueberry N Strawberry N Calculations: Unplugged nose Plugged nose Correct guesses = 85 73 Incorrect guesses = 50 62 TOTAL guesses = 135 135 Percent correct = 85/135 x 100 = 63% 73/135 x 100 = 54% Percent incorrect = 50/135 x 100 = 37% 62/135 x 100 = 46%
B. Graphs Percent of correct and incorrect guesses of Jolly Rancher Olavors when noses were plugged versus unplugged Percent of guesses correct / incorrect 100 50 0 Unplugged nose Plugged nose Unplugged nose Plugged nose Correct 85 73 Incorrect 50 62 Incorrect Correct
IV. ANALYZING AND INTERPRETING RESULTS A. Summary In this investigation, our class found out if it is easier to taste a Jolly Rancher if the nose is unplugged or plugged. Also, while we tasted the Jolly Rancher, we made sure to keep our eyes closed, faced away from the JRs and kept the candy in our mouths for 10 seconds. During our research, we found that taste and smell are closely related (Parker and Gray). Our inquiry question was: "How does plugging versus unplugging your nose affect the accuracy of identifying the flavor of a Jolly Rancher?" B. Results We found that plugging our noses did make a difference in identifying the flavor of a JR, compared to unplugging our noses. In our hypothesis, we predicted that when our noses were unplugged, we would get more flavors correct because we have two of our five senses (smell and taste) rather than just one (taste). Our prediction was right, because more guesses were correct when our noses were unplugged. When our noses were unplugged, we guessed the flavor correctly 85 times, compared to 50 incorrect guesses. When our noses were plugged, we guessed correctly 73 times, compared to 62 incorrectly guessed. We think this is not a big difference in results. We think this is because Jolly Ranchers don't really have much of a smell to them; maybe using a different food would have generated better results. We don't really know if this is accurate or not because we haven't seen the other class's data. We also aren't sure that everyone followed the procedures in the same way. When we were
doing the testing, some people didn't use the procedures. We didn't cleanse our palates between tests, so this may have contributed to our results being less significant. When looking at patterns in the results, we noticed that some people were more consistent with incorrect responses when their noses were plugged ( times this occurred), but incorrect responses when the nose was unplugged was more scattered. Another pattern was that cherry and apple flavors were often mixed up by a lot of people ( of times this happened). Students guessed correctly 9% more when noses were unplugged. Another way to look at it is 85 is less than 20% greater than 73 - which may seem like a significant difference in correct guesses. C. Explanation The reason our results turned out this way is because when your nose is unplugged you can smell the flavor before you taste it. Even though people think you only taste with your mouth, a lot of taste comes from the nose, and eating is a combination of taste, smell and touch. The moisture from your food goes through olfactory cells to your brain (Brynie, Parker, and Janulaw). D. Sources of error We have medium confidence that our data is accurate. This is because there are always errors in a scientific investigation. Here are the sources of error identified that would help me to get even more accurate data. Most of the class thought that they did not time their partners accurately during the test. This could have allowed many test subjects to
have a longer time to identify the flavor. Also, at least 11 students remember unplugging their noses during the plugged nose tests, which also could affect our results, biasing the data for the plugged nose tests. We could have used some sort of device to plug our noses to prevent this from happening. It also might have helped if we had used a blindfold instead of asking the TS to close his/her eyes. Limitations to our experiment included the amount of time we had to taste the Jolly Ranchers - maybe if we had more time, data (flavor guesses) could have been more accurate. Some people are not used to eating Jolly Ranchers, so they may not know what the flavors are named. This would affect their guesses, causing incorrect guesses compared to someone who knows the names of all of the flavors. In our design we did not include procedures for cleansing the palate; when we tasted one JR, we could be tasting flavors from the previous one, too. We could have included a step for gargling water between taste tests. All of these limitations could have caused errors in our data. E. Additional questions / observations While looking over the data for this investigation, I thought of some interesting extensions to this study. It seemed that we could mix foods with different smells to see how it might change how we identify the food we're eating. For example, eating oatmeal while smelling oranges - would this impact our ability to identify the flavor of the oatmeal? We also wonder if this test would turn out similarly if we used different types of candy or food.