Research Paper

This page will include all kinds of research paper that I have written as school works as well as just for fun. Topics will vary all the time. 

Rate of Photosynthesis and Seed Germination

There are 4 different matters that affect the rate of photosynthesis. These matters are, light intensity, temperature, carbon dioxide, water and the color of light. In this lab, the color of light is mostly investigated. Since the photosynthesis takes place in the chloroplast that has chlorophylls, the result of photosynthesis is highly affected by the intensity of light and also the color of light.

Our hypothesis was, if several kidney bean seeds are placed on a dish then, the dish that observes the blue light the most will grow the most and the dish that observes the yellow light the most will grow the least because of the wavelength of light. I conducted this lab simply by locating few kidney beans onto 5 different dishes which each would get different colors of light focused. Then, I would measure the length of the plants growing per day to observe if my hypothesis was correct. 

Our research question was "Would the rate of photosynthesis and seed germination get effected if the kidney beans are placed in different dishes that each would observe different colors of light?" As a group, we chose this question as our research question because we wanted to relate this to current issue happening around scientific society. Currently, many scientists are arguing that due to super smog and fine dusts are affecting the rate of seed germination and photosynthesis in China and Korea. Our group really wanted to know if there is any other way to increase the rate of photosynthesis so that farmers can actively grow these plants well again through these super smogs and fine dusts. 

In conclusion, we have found that plant that receives blue light will grow the most in short amount of time. This was due to the amount of light absorption of plants. Therefore, our group believed that in order for farmers to grow their plants well through super smog and fine dusts, they should use blue lights so that plants can photosynthesis and germinate well. 

According to my experiments, the plant that received blue light grew the most while plant that received yellow light grew the least. Our group had made total of 6 graphs to support this result. According to our graph, the highest average recorded was 14.773, which was shown in the plant that received the blue light. The lowest average on the 11th day recorded was 6.706, which was observed from plant that received yellow light.

    To compare all the highest averages of all 5 different results, we have created final graph. As our graph shows, it is very clear to observe that plant that observed blue light grew the most and the yellow light grew the least with very delicate difference. 

    Lastly, to see if our plants actually grew significantly, our group ran 2  T-Test data sets. Just to clarify what T-Test and P-Value is, I would like to explain little bit about what T-Test and P-Value tells us. T-Test is normally used to compare two different averages and see if our result is the actual growth of the plants and the actual result that it should be shown, rather than it was just a coincidence. 

P-value is the probability of obtaining a test statistics to see if the result of our result was very significant. 

We first have compared 2 datas, the "blue" and "green". The result of the "blue" and "green" gave us the P-Value of 0.0004, which in other words our data is extremely statistically significant. 

    In our second graph, we have compared another 2 data sets, the plant that showed the tallest growth and the third tallest growth, "blue" with "transparent". The result of "blue" with "transparent" gave us the P-value of less than 0.0001 which means, it is also incredibly statistically significant.  

 Our hypothesis towards our research question "Would the rate of photosynthesis and seed germination get effected if the kidney beans are placed in different dishes that each would observe different colors of light?" was "If several kidney beans seeds are placed on a dish then, the dish that observes the blue light will grow the most however, the dish that observes the yellow light will grow the least because of the wavelengths. " In order to prove that our hypothesis was correct, we have designed our own experiment.

    Since we are humans, we are not perfect. Therefore, as our group was doing the experiment, we realized that our experiment was not fair. Since our experiment was not fair and perfect, we realized that we also needed to improve some parts of our experiment. In our conclusion, we would write about errors that we have made and promote solutions or improvements which could improve our result or our experiment. 

    We have had made following errors:

1. Did not give water in the same time
2. Did not give same amount of water 
3. My brother dropped one plant while the experiment was taking place
4. Did not measure plants in same time
5. Plants did not grow in same places

    Our group thinks that we have made these errors because we did not measure exact time when we gave water. We tried our best to give water in same time and in same amount,however, we could not get our time and amount of water 100 percent correct in every time that we gave water to these plants. I believe that we cannot get all these elements very accurately correct unless we are very precise of everything. Also, as the experiment was going on, my brother accidentally knocked down part of our experiment which gave us the result of having only 11 trials instead of 15 in total. Lastly, our group has also failed to measure the plant growth in same time and as well, we did not grow plants in the same places. We think we failed to do so because we did not keep time exactly every time that we have measured our plants. Adding on, we believe that we did not 100 % failed to grow plants in the same places however, we think that we have failed to give same amount of light towards the plants. This was due to the movement of sun because the sun eventually moves throughout the day, which means that we cannot distinguish the amount of light given to the plants. 

    As our final result, we realized that the plant that receives the blue light grows the most and yellow light grows the least. We also have evidence to back up our result provided from Heejjung's paper written on December 11th, 2010. Her research paper stated that plant that absorbs blue light will grow the most and yellow light will grow the least due to amount of light absorbed as the following graph is showing:

Acknowledgements

1. Thank you to Mrs. Johanson and Ms. Lee for giving us opportunity to open science fair and giving us help towards all factors of the science fair.
2. Thank you to Stephanie's mom for providing idea to make t-test data.

Bibliography

1. Heejjung. "Effect of Colour of Light on the Rate of Photosynthesis." Effect of Colour of Light on the Rate of Photosynthesis. Slideshare, 2 Dec. 2011. Web. 31 Mar. 2014.
2. "Photosynthesis." Photosynthesis. UIC Edu, n.d. Web. 30 Mar. 2014. <http://www.uic.edu/classes/bios/bios100/lectures/ps01.htm>
3. http://www.graphpad.com/

Heart Rate of Students Who Consistently Done Sports and Not

Throughout the research, I have found out that there are three different factors that affect blood pressure and heart rate of a person. These matters are medication, nutrition and exercise. From these three factors, our group has chosen to focus on how exercise affect blood pressure and heart rate of a person. Specifically, we have chosen to target this project upon teenagers aged between 16 to 17, in other words, grade 9s. Then, we have thought about how we should address this problem and found out a solution of dividing students into 2 different groups (students who have done exercises consistently and who have not). 

    Our hypothesis was If I measure Blood Pressure (BP) and pulse of 2 different groups of teenagers (who consistently exercises and who does not) after doing certain number of exercises, BP and pulse of those who consistently workout will have lower BP and pulse compared to those who does not workout consistently. In addition, it will also take less time for heart rate to become normal after exercise for those who have done sports consistently. This will happen because those who exercise consistently can pump much more blood out towards all parts of the body at once compared to those who do not workout consistently. Furthermore, it will take less time for sports students' heart rate to become normal because the heart itself would have been more adjusted into the condition of putting the heart rate back to the normal fast since the person has done work outs consistently. Therefore, the group of teenagers who consistently workout will have lower BP and pulse if we measure BP and pulse after making them do certain number of exercises. 

    Our research questions are " How long will it take for heart rate to become normal for both students aged between 16 to 17 who have consistently done exercises and who have not after doing 20 jumping jacks?How will Blood Pressure and Heart Rate differ in students aged between 16 to 17 who have consistently done exercises and who have not after doing 20 jumping jacks?" As a pair, we chose this question as our research question because we wanted to look at the importance of doing work out consistently by looking at the set of data collected by this project. In addition, we also wanted to compare our result with other papers that are written by professeurs of universities, which has the content of similar experiment except for the fact that the experiment was conducted upon adults with various gender.

    In conclusion, we have found out that there is a significant difference on their heart rate, blood pressure and time that it takes for their heart rate after exercise to come back to normal of those who have consistently work out and those who have not. 

Variables

Independent Variable	Dependent Variable
Frequency of exercise	Blood Pressure and Heart Rate
Controlled Variables	How Variables will be Controlled
Number of Students	Number of students for each group (group that does sports and group that does not) will be 20. This will be controlled by selecting 20 students within the age group of 15 to 16.
Room Condition	Room condition will be controlled by collecting data of each students within one room or within same conditions with same temperature, size and environment.
Materials Used	Same materials should be used to collect data for all students. This will be controlled by using only one type of oximeter and blood pressure monitor to collect data.
Age Group	This experiment should be conducted only upon the age group of 16 to 17
Type of Exercise	Students who are doing this experiment will each do exactly same exercise as others. This will be controlled by making students do only jumping jacks.
Number of Exercise	Number of exercise will be controlled by making students only do 20 jumping jacks each trial and we will help them manage their numbers by counting beside them when they are doing jumping jacks.
Gender	This experiment should be only conducted upon girls and this will be controlled by only collecting 40 girls at first.

Materials:

1. Pulse oximeter
2. Blood Pressure Monitor
3. 20 students who has consistently done sports - participated in academies, CASE activities or sports activities outside of school consistently
1. Academies are defined as group of elite athletes within school who attend weekly trainings steadily. 
2. Students participate in academies such as cross country, volleyball, basketball, golf, and swimming.
3. Students in this group has participated in at least 2 of the weekly trainings for 1 hour. During the training, they would have done exercise such as running laps and swimming 50 meter pool 10 times. 
4. 20 students who has not consistently done sports - normal students who does not participate in academies, CASE activities or sports activities outside of school
5. Paper and pen

Procedures: 

1. Collect 40 students (20 students who have consistently done sport and 20 students who have not) who are willing to participate in your science fair project.
2. Divide them up to two groups of students who have and have not consistently done sports.
3. First measure their resting heart rate and blood pressure.
4. Write the data down onto a paper using a pen.
5. Then make them do 20 jumping jacks.
6. Measure their heart rate and blood pressure using pulse oximeter and blood pressure monitor. Write the data down onto a piece of paper using a pen.
7. Measure the time that their heart rate comes back to the normal heart rate before they have done 20 jumping jacks.
8. Repeat step 4 to 7 for 3 times on each student. 

According to my experiment upon sports, heart rate and blood pressure, the heart rate and blood pressure of students who have consistently done sports were much lower. In addition, heart rate after doing 20 jumping jacks of students who have consistently done sports came back to normal resting heart rate faster compared to students who have not consistently done sports. Our group made total of 2 data tables and 6 graphs to support this result.      According to our graphs and data tables below (files), the average heart rate of students who have consistently done sports after doing 20 jumping jacks recorded 122.7 bpm. Whereas the average heart rate of students who has not consistently done sports after doing 20 jumping jacks recorded 139.9 bpm. Just by looking at these two heart rate, one can easily notice that average heart rate of students who have not consistently done sports after doing 20 jumping jacks is quite higher than students who have consistently done sports.           One can also notice the difference between two groups of students by looking at the resting heart rate as well. The average resting heart rate of students who have consistently done sports recorded 79.5 bpm. Yet, the average resting heart rate of students who have not consistently done sports recorded 81 bpm. Average resting heart rate of students who have not consistently done sports also was recorded higher compared to students who have done sports consistently. By looking at these two averages, it is clear that sport helps one to maintain their health rhythm quite healthily.  Heart Rate of Sports Students After Doing 20 Jumping Jacks (Table) Heart Rate of Non-Sport Student After Doing 20 Jumping Jacks (Table)     Heart rate is not the only factor that supports this fact. The averaged time that takes heart rate after doing 20 jumping jacks to come back to normal heart rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressure also proves that doing sports in a consistent rate help students to maintain their health rhythm healthily.  Time that Takes Sport Students to Bring Their Heart Rate to Normal                              After doing 20 Jumping Jacks (Table) Time that Takes Non-Sport Students to Bring Their Heart Rate Back                  to Normal After Doing 20 Jumping Jacks (Table)   Systolic Blood Pressure of Sport Students After Doing 20 Jumping                                                    Jacks (Table)     Systolic Blood Pressure of Non-Sport Students After Doing 20                                          Jumping Jacks (Table) Diastolic Blood Pressure of Sport Students After Doing 20 Jumping Jacks (Table)     Diastolic Blood Pressure of Non-Sports Students After Doing 20                                          Jumping Jacks (Table)     Furthermore, to actually prove that our data collections from our experiment is significant and meaningful, we ran several T-Test data sets. To clarify T-Test and P-Value, T-Test is normally used to compare two different averages and P-value is the probability of obtaining a test statistics to see if the result of our result was very significant. Additionally, the data sets are proven to be significant if P-value is less than 0.05. Our group was actually able to prove that our data collections are meaningful and significant because all of our T-Test resulted P-value less than 0.05.      Firstly, the T-Test ran based on heart rate of both students who have and have not done sports consistently resulted p-value of 0.0000017258, which proves that data collections and comparison based on heart rate of two different types of students are extremely significant and meaningful.                           Heart Rate T-Test     Secondly, T-Test ran based on systolic and diastolic blood pressure is also proved to be significant because each of them resulted p-value of 0.0000694874 and 0.003279654, which proves that data collections and comparison based on blood pressure of two different types of students are extremely significant and meaningful as well.          Systolic Blood Pressure T-Test        Diastolic Blood Pressure T-Test            Lastly, T-Test ran based on time that it takes heart rate after doing 20 jumping jacks to come back to resting heart rate is also proved to be significant because p-value is 0.0000013781, which proves that data collections and comparison based on time of two different types of students are extremely significant and meaningful as well as all other factors did.                          Time T-Test

Our hypothesis was "If I measure Blood Pressure (BP) and pulse of 2 different groups of teenagers (who consistently exercises and who does not) after doing certain number of exercises, BP and pulse of those who consistently workout will have lower BP and pulse compared to those who does not workout consistently. In addition, it will also take less time for heart rate to become normal after exercise for those who have done sports consistently. This will happen because those who exercise consistently can pump much more blood out towards all parts of the body at once compared to those who do not workout consistently. Furthermore, it will take less time for sports students' heart rate to become normal because the heart itself would have been more adjusted into the condition of putting the heart rate back to the normal fast since the person has done work outs consistently." Result of this project supports our hypothesis due to following reason. 

    Heart rate and blood pressure of those who have done sports consistently where lower compared to students who have not. Furthermore, students who have done sports consistently took less time to take their heart rate back to normal after doing exercise. 

    Yet, we strongly believe their is far more meaning to this project due to following reasons. Firstly, result of this project clearly shown the significant difference of heart rate and pulse between students who have done sports consistently and who have not. However, compared to other similar studies done by post graduate students, we were not able to collect students who trained consistently for about 3 hours per day for a year while increasing their heart rate up until 100% of average resting heart rate of their age per session. Yet, there were significant difference between students who have done sports and who have not without participating in similar amount of exercises other object groups have done in similar reports written by post graduate students while just participating in way low amount of training sessions for sports academies. 

    Secondly, even though students who have done sports consistently attended academy trainings steadily, there were some limitations that we have faced while collecting data sets. Due to some school breaks that we had in between collection data, there were some gaps where students were not able to exercise. Yet, there certainly were significant difference in between two object groups as well. 

   Lastly, the result of this experiment is very meaningful because the result proved that sports activities

within schools also have a significant impact on health of girls who are aged between 16 to 17 years old. 

    In conclusion, we strongly believe our result that we have gained from this project is very meaningful in terms of how there were limitations and how sports activities provided by schools also have a significant impact on health of girls who are aged between 16 to 17 years old. 

What errors (mistakes) did you make while performing this experiment?

We would like to talk about some major and minor errors we made through this experiment. First of all, our data might not be that accurate as we did experiment on only 20 students for each, which means the data might not be reliable to use for significant projects or so on. Second, we missed some important factors that might affect this experiment a lot. To be more specific, those factors are medication, nutrition, and exercise. Among those three, we focused on exercise but not medication, and nutrition as the independent variable was ‘Frequency of exercise’. So, medication, and nutrition that differs by individual might have made some difference when we considered it during the project. Furthermore, compared to other similar studies done by post graduate students, we were not able to collect students who trained consistently for about 3 hours per day for a year while increasing their heart rate up until 100% of average resting heart rate of their age per session. Moreover, there were some gaps in between doing exercises for object groups because there were unexpected school breaks that our group could not think of. 

What changes would you make to improve your reliability and results if you did this experiment again?

In order to improve, we would do more data collecting, which means doing the experiment with more people like 40 students per model or more. This will make difference on the reliability, and the accuracy of data. For the factors that we might consider, we would like to do different experiment on medication, and nutrition too as we did with exercise this time. This means we might have three different independent variables, which are medication, nutrition, and exercise. By doing this, our data, conclusion, and the result would make more clear difference between two models, and be much more accurate. In addition, we would also like to be mindful about school breaks while collecting datas if we are provided the chance to do this experiment again. This will help us on collecting quite more accurate data sets then what we have collected know because there will not be any kind of gap in between exercise period. 

1. "심박수의 변화 (운동과 HR)." (n.d.): n. pag. Web.