Advantages: Quick, relatively cheap, relatively easy, and you can bribe kids with eating the popcorn AFTER the project is done.
Disadvantages: Most lack creativity. The best option is always to design your own, but here are a few ideas to inspire you.
I popped this bowl just for this blog - but it's gone now, my kids ate it - after they cleaned their rooms!
Let’s start with variables – what are the “things” we can change when it comes to popping popcorn?
• Brand Name vs. Generic
• Brand Names (ranked by price per bag)
• Type/Flavor
• Butter Content
• How they are popped: microwave, stovetop, or air popper
• Surface they are popped on
• Size of bag/amount of kernels
• Age of kernels
• Storage temperature for kernels
• Storage conditions (e.g. airtight vs. open air)
• Time for popping
Now let’s think about what we can measure as a QUANTITATIVE outcome (i.e. it has to result in a number):
• Total number of kernels popped/un-popped
• Percentage of kernels that popped (or not)
• Volume of popcorn produced
• Weight of popcorn produced
• Maximum size of individual popped corn
• Average size of popped corn
Once you have identified potential variables – start putting them together for interesting questions. Warning – as tempting as it is – stay away from using “taste” because it is a qualitative and subjective variable.
Here are some examples:
Question: How does the storage temperature affect percentage of kernels that pop?
Question: Do expensive brands yield more popcorn?
Question: Does butter content affect average size of popped corn?
Remember you must, must, must replicate, replicate, replicate! You will need to repeat whatever you do at least 3 times, but that’s no problem – it just means more popcorn to eat later.
i am doing my science fair project on does different brands of popcorn leave different amount of kernnels behind, and i need some help with the research and the experiment.im in 8th grade.can u help??
Research the history of popcorn and find out how companies ensure good popping success. Also look into which popcorn company started the craze and who is now the leading popcorn seller.
Your experiment needs replication (3 bags from each brand) and a control (based on your hypothesis). In general – what do you think results in the differences between companies? Could it be price? Or butter content? Or age of kernels? The control will be the brand with the LEAST of whatever you think makes a difference because you will compare all the other brands to that one. For example, as price increases, does the number of unpopped kernels decrease?
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I am doing my science fair project on how does the storage temperature affect percentage of kernals that pop? I have done something similar in the past but I did not have to do research on it. Can you help me with ideas on research? I looked at the brand of popcorn I used website and got their storage information but I have to have 3-5. I am in the 6th grade can you help me too???
If you can’t find 3 to 5 storage temperatures for different brands, then use the one you have and vary the storage temperatures systematically – for example plus and minus 5 degrees and also plus and minus 10 degrees. That would give you 5 temperatures centered around the storage temperature you did find.
How many packages of popcorn are needed in the entire experiment?
It depends on what you decide to do, but a minimum of 6 (3 for the control and 3 for whatever change you select). For proper replication, you will need 3 bags per level of the change (e.g. if you evaluate low, medium, high temperatures then you will need 9 bags, 3 each.
We are doing the experiment on which yields more popped kernels: plain or buttered popcorn. Should we compare one brand to the same brand several times or should we compare different plain brands to different buttered brands? We want to keep it simple (6th grade). How would we keep track of the unpopped kernels: graph, tally marks? We are new to all of this! Thanks for your help!
Replication can be done in more than one way. In the purest sense, it would be 3 bags of plain from Brand X vs. 3 bags of buttered from Brand X, but it would be more interesting if you did 1 bag of plain from Brand X vs. 1 bag of buttered from Brand X and then repeat that for 2 more brands. What you DON’T want to do is 3 bags of plain vs. 3 bags of buttered from 6 different brands because the measured differences could be due to brand and not the buttering.
For each bag, count the number of popped and the number of un-popped so that you have a total number of kernels (popped + un-popped). You can then calculate the percentage of popped kernels (number of popped divided by total number of kernels times 100 to get a percentage; for example: from Brand X: plain = 78% popped vs. buttered = 50% popped – I made those numbers up!). You could then make a bar graph to compare plain vs. buttered for each brand and/or all plain vs. all buttered to show variation between brands. Good Luck – once you have the data, if you still have questions – just post them here!
Hi, my 5th grade child decided to do her science project on how does storage temperature affect popcorn popping? So we used the same brand of popcorn, then stored popcorn bags in three different temperature locations freezer, countertop, and frig we stored them for 24 hours. Then we popped each bag in the microwave for two minutes. We are confused about different variables constant, control, Independent, and Dependent? And we are trying to measure the best place to store popcorn? By counting the unpopped kernels in each bag? HELP!
The experimental design is fine – hopefully you had 3 bags stored in the freezer, 3 in the fridge and 3 on the counter – if not, you could repeat the whole thing 2 more times.
The independent variable is what you chose to manipulate: storage temperature
The dependent variable is what you decide to measure: “popcorn popping”
The constants are things you kept the same: brand, popping time, microwave power, etc.
The control depends on how you worded the question and hypothesis. You probably thought:
As temperature decreases, the percentage of kernels popping decreases/increases
So the control is the room temperature bags and you compare those results to when you change the temperature by decreasing the temperature in the fridge (colder) and then in the freezer (coldest).
You can measure the effectiveness of popping in several ways: number of kernels popped, number of kernels that did not pop, percentage of popped (# popped divided by total number of kernels), percentage unpopped, etc.
Hope that helps!
Thanks it did!
Hello, I’m doing a science experiment and I wanted to know do you think this is a good hypothesis. If three different storage locations temperatures are used ,The three listed, then the popcorn will have more or less unpopped kernels.
Generally, the hypothesis is the predicted answer to your question.
If your question is:
How does storage location temperature affect percentage of popped kernels?
Then your hypothesis needs to be something like:
As the temperature of storage (increases or decreases – pick one), the percentage of popped kernels will (increase or decrease or stay the same – pick one)
My son wants to do an experiment on what oil makes popcorn pop faster? How would he research? Could you help us please?
Great idea – you could use a variety of oils (your independent variable) to see if there is a difference in how fast the popcorn pops (dependent variable = time for 100 kernels to pop) and/or how efficient the popping is (dependent variable = percentage of kernels that pop) and/or any other dependent characteristic that you can measure.
As far as research goes, have him look into all the different types of oil people use in cooking. What makes vegetable oil different from olive oil? canola oil? peanut oil? etc. Are there any advantages to using one over the other? (Note this will help with the hypothesis).
Good Luck!
We are testing 4 brands of popcorn to see which one has the least amount of unpopped popcorn. We have tested each 3 times. Do you take an average of the 3 tests to come up with that brands unpopped kernels. Thank you.
Yes – the average of the three trials for each of the four brands will allow you to compare results and make a conclusion regarding which brand was “best”. However, I would make at least 2 bar graphs – one showing all three results for each of 4 brands and then a summary graph showing the average. This will ensure that judges/teachers will see that you properly replicated the experiment (i.e. they will see the three bars for each brand). Sometimes, when students only present the average – it appears that they only did it one time.
Hi I am doing a science project that uses popcorn
Question: what method of popping popcorn pops more kernels
In this case what would my control be?
That depends on what your question is, your hypothesis is and what methods you are using. Post them here and I’ll walk you through it.
The general idea is that the control, controls for the independent variable, so – for example, if you thought the MOST expensive method of popping should produce the most popped kernels, then the LEAST expensive method is your control because you will compare the results of the more expensive methods to the least expensive method.
Your question would be along the lines of: Do more expensive methods produce more kernels and your hypothesis would be something like: As the expense of the popping method increases (independent variable), the amount of popped corn increases (dependent variable).
Likewise you could be thinking that the more recent methods should pop more (control: oldest method) or the methods that use the most energy should pop more (control: method that uses the least energy).
Keep in mind that the control is what you will compare all the other results to! – Good Luck!
My son is doing a project on how the storage temp effects popcorn popping. My question is since we are doing it on the stove should we use a set time for each sample?
Yes – otherwise you will have 2 variables: 1 = storage temperature of kernels and 2 = temperature at which kernels are popped
So does this increase on how many variables because I can only have 1?
No – as long as you pick ONE. So decide why you think different popping methods might lead to different results and formulate a question
Thank you!
I’ll try to figure out this whole mess of mine with your advice
Thank you!
I’ll try to figure out this whole mess of mine with your advice