Iron Chef Labs

Strawberries:

Group 1:
- comparing organic strawberries versus conventional
- used enzyme science to demonstrate the decomposition of strawberries
hypothesis: they wanted to see whether the strawberries would dissolve in beakers with chemicals the same way they do in the human body
variables: uneven evaporation, not enough strawberries to record reliable data, some beakers were different sizes, and the amount of mold changed the measure of displacement as well
- as the strawberries dissolved they would become more dense
- pectanate enzyme seems to be the strongest dissolver for organic
- would want a higher temperature for this lab bc it would be more reasonable and real because it would be like the human body
relating to nutrition: it's like the chemical digestion in the body, the chemicals digest the food so this was what they were looking at *see hypothesis for this

Group 2:
hypothesis: If a lab technician swabs a organic and a conventional strawberry and transfers it into an agar plate and later an incubator then the organic strawberries’ agar plate will grow more botrytis cinerea than the agar plate with the swab from the conventional strawberry because the organic strawberries are not allowed to use pesticides to prevent mold.
- comparing conventional versus conventional
- wanted to see if conventional grew mold faster than organic
- made a special agar to grow mold and it's special bc it didn't degrade the mold amount
- used 12 petri dishes: 6 conventional & 6 organic
- variables: some people turning off the incubator, accidental contamination, timing (having this class every other day can affect the accuracy of the results)
- didn't find as much fungi as they wanted to
- saw about the same growth of bacteria on both strawberries
- started the experiment with day-old strawberries

Group 1 is on the left and group 2 is on the right. Here is a picture of group 2 presenting to the judges which are about 8 feet or so in front of them.

Pesticides:

Group 1:
- to see how pesticides affect plants and animal cells
- thought that the pesticides would affect the animal cells more because it would attack them
- used yeast and basil plants
- used 4 basil plants
- variables: ants in the beakers
- pesticides did affect both the yeast and the basil
- with pesticides, yeast died and basil did also
- without pesticides, they did fine
(hypothesis was correct)

Group 2:
- If organic and inorganic samples of: ground chuck, and apples are exposed to the same pesticides, then the organic food’s cellular structure will be more damaged by the pesticides than the non organic foods, because non-organic food has been altered to resist pesticides.
- organic and conventional apples and ground chuck
- measured by how many colonies were found on the agar
- swabbed the pesticides and put them on the dishes
- wanted to see if mold would grow on the agar in the dishes
variables: the incubator being turned off, the ants trying to go into their plates, their timing (could only look every other day), didn't have as many plates as they would've liked to have
- more growth on the organic items
- apples had more mold

Here's a picture of groups 1 and 2. In this picture, group 1 is presenting to the judges and they're explaining their data table.

Corn

Group 1:
- If a plastic water bottle is melted down and BPA is collected and placed on kernels of corn, then the corn kernel that received this BPA will experience more cellular damage in comparison to unaffected corn because BPA is a toxic chemical and will kill aspects of the cell.
- testing for bpa, it was in all of the corn
- extracted bpa from plastic water bottles
- they used acetone to melt the water bottle
- bpa has a lower melting point than plastic so at the end of the experiment, bpa was the only part left over
- refrigerated for 4 days
- bpa is NOT something we want in our food
- breast and prostate cancer can come from bpa
- bpa can also put a damper on the body's hormones

Group 2:
- If 50g of frozen, canned, and a conventional ear of corn are stored within an incubator at 33° C, then the conventional ear of corn will generate the most bacteria within 6 observational days because no methods have been applied to prevent the growth of bacteria and promote the preservation of the corn.
- thought the ear of corn would grow the most bacteria in the petri dish compared to frozen corn and canned corn because it's the most natural and nothing has been done to it
materials: agar tablets, beakers, different varieties of corn, dishes, heat protected gloves
- first, they weighed the corn, and separated them into 3 petri dishes and contaminated the petri dishes so bacteria would grow
- after they put the corn into the incubator, they examined the progress over the course of about 2 weeks to see which corn promoted the most bacterial growth
variables: incubator being turned off, not completely accurate colony counting
- ear of corn grew the most bacteria

Drinks

Group 1:
- soda, and apparently healthy smoothie
- used teeth to see how these different drinks would affect the teeth
- hypothesized that the soda would cause the most plaque to build up and would be much worse for the teeth
- got actual human teeth from an oral surgeon
- experimented with tea coffee, and listerine to watch the buildup as well
- the artificial sugars ruined the teeth and at the very end, the teeth were completely black
- needed 1-5 test subjects
- agar plates went into incubator at 33 degrees Celsius
- 1/5 Americans drink soda every day
-

Group 2:
- If yeast is given different liquids with varying amounts of natural and artificial sugars in bottles with balloons on top, then the bottle with the most natural sugar will inflate the balloon the most because the yeast will thrive with the natural sugars causing the yeast to release more carbon dioxide.
- tested what different drinks would do to the yeast and documented the results (coke versus green goodness; smoothie)
- the beaker with more natural sugars inflated the balloon more
- honey and the sugar overflowed in less than an hour in the second trial
- after a little while, the sugar was the most inflated
- 3 hours later: honey caught up
- overall, the cane sugar inflated the balloon the most because the yeast eats the glucose excessively
variable: ran out of honey and yeast