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.