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! :)
Thanks for your final blog post, and for all of your efforts this year. It was a pleasure working with you, and I appreciated your reliable blogging. Have a great summer!
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