Final Blog Post!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My project this year is to find if breakfast foods with low glycemic index and high glycemic index will affect students' academic performance. So, I designed an experiment to test this out. To conduct my experiment, I invited one group of students on a Saturday morning, and have them eat either foods with high glycemic index or foods with low glycemic index. A list of choices was provided. Then, they came back in an hour and take a quiz that measures their mathematical and vocabulary skills. They repeated this on another Saturday, but they ate the other type of food. I measured how well students did on the quiz eating low glycemic foods compared to eating high glycemic foods.

The main challenge in the beginning was definitely finding people to do my experiment. I sent out an invitation email, and only one person responded. I then went to talk to a group of 9th graders, and only 2 students responded. I realized that the only way to find people is through own connections. In the end, I was able to complete 10 successful trials.

I am very pleased with the results! It proves that eating slow burning food in the morning will help you improve your academic performance, as the average percent difference in score is 15!

I would tell a future STEAM researcher to have fun and enjoy this experience! Choose a topic that you are passionate about or want to know more about! Throughout this semester, you will get to talk to many different people and learn from each other! Have fun! :)

April Post 2

As I mentioned in the last post, I have 10 data. I used a graph to represent the data. The graph shows the percent difference of test scores between eating low glycemic index and high glycemic index food. It shows that most students do better with eating low glycemic index food. The average percent difference is 15 +- 5 quiz score.

I started working on my poster. I followed the guidelines given, dividing the poster into many sections. I have to include background information, project goal, methods, results, references, significance, reflection and conclusion. I had a week to complete it. Since I had annotations done earlier, I completed the background information really quickly. I had some graphs from my experiment as well as from my survey. I put them under "results". I wrote my method or procedure for my experiment in a previous blog post, so I fixed a little bit of the wordings and put it under "methods". I finished my poster, and met with my mentor, Mr Calos. He checked my poster, and we analysed the results together. I submitted my poster the next day! Can't wait to see my poster when it's printed. I think I am ready to present on Wednesday! Woohoo!

April post 1

I did some research on glycemic index. Higher glycemic index food have quicker blood sugar response, which means the food is burned very quickly and thus, you feel hungry very fast. Low-glycemic-index foods have slower blood sugar response. That means that you’ll be able to maintain a steady energy level and appetite throughout the day, rather than getting the quick spike of energy followed by a crash. Research suggests that breakfast can boost students' cognitive functioning, memory, and test grades. I completed 5 annotated bibliographies.

I also found more people to do my experiment. They followed the instructions (see last post), and did two quizzes on two separate days. Now, I have 10 people, that means 10 data.

The next step is to analyse the results and start doing my poster for the STEAM fair coming up in a few weeks.

March Post 1

As mentioned in the last post, I am ready to begin my experiment!

I first sent out an email to all students with a link to sign up to do my experiment. However, only 1 person out of 350 signed up. So, we thought of other ways to ask people. I thought of asking the 9th grader STEAM students. I came into their meeting to tell them about my experiment. 3 people out of this group signed up. Although the number of participants is quite small, I started my experiment the weekend before spring break. 4 students came in on a Saturday morning, and ate either fast or slow burning food. Then, they came back in an hour to take the short quiz. It went very smoothly. I am excited to continue part 2 of my experiment. 

My next step is to continue to find more people to do my experiment. I think I will approach my friends as well as their friends' friends. My goal is to have 12 participants. (right now I have 5) I will also be working on my bibliography. 

February Post 2

We spent the last 2 weeks planning on our experiment. We first decided to send out a survey to students to find out more about current breakfast eating habit. Results has shown that about 90% of the students eat breakfast. Half of the student body eat bagels with cream cheese. Egg is the second most popular breakfast food.

My experiment is fairly straightforward.  I will invite one group of students on a Saturday morning, and have them eat either fast burning food or slow burning food. A list of choices will be provided. Then, they will come back in an hour and take a quiz that measures their mathematic and vocabulary skills. They repeat this on another Saturday, but they will eat the other type of food. I will measure how well students did on the quiz eating fast burning food compared to eating slow burning food.

Since my quiz is on math and vocabulary, I took some sample questions from the SAT website and created two similar quizzes. I asked my math teacher and english teacher to see if the two quizzes are equivalent.

My next step is to find students to do my experiment!

January Post

A lot of time were spent researching about topics, coming up with ideas, drafting a outline and more. I was first interested in psychology and came up with two topics, social conformity and decision making. Then, as I was doing more research, I find nutrition and how it affects our brain interesting. I started narrowing down my topic, and focused on specifically how the nutrition in breakfast foods affect academic performance. I then started paying attention to what students eat for breakfast at the dining hall and made some observations. I started categorising food groups, such as fast burning foods, and slow burning foods. I found on a website that eating slow burning foods will help you do better in mathematic and vocabulary skills. To prove this theory, I started to plan an experiment to test if fast or slow burning foods does impact one's mathematic and vocabulary skills. I really look forward to the results!

February Post 1

After several weeks of planning, Mr Calos and I have finally decided on what topic to work on this semester. The goal of my project is to see what kinds of nutrition in breakfast food will help raise student's academic performance. I started research about different breakfast foods, and what effect they have on academic performance. I narrowed down to two types, fast burning food and slow burning food. Fast burning food means that it is not going to help you last until lunch time, hence, you will feel hungry very soon. Some examples are french toast, waffles, pancakes, danish, and sugary cereal. Slow burning means that it will help you last until lunch time. Some examples are eggs, bacon, hash, bagel with cream cheese or peanut butter, whole grain bread or cereal, sausage and fruits.

I also set up a meeting with Kevin Bayer, the director of food service, to ask him questions about nutrition. He told me examples of fast burning and slow burning food, specific ingredients that help academic performance and more. It was a great opportunity to learn more about food and nutrition.

My next step of the project is planning the experiment!