Name: Debbie H.
Status: educator
Age: 30s
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: Tuesday, May 21, 2002
Question:
A student was criticized by judges at the Science Fair
because he had no "control" for his experiment. He made 8 types of
homemade fire starters and then tested 3 of each for fire starting time,
flame height, length of burn, and temperature. They also criticized his
use of paraffin wax (a fuel) as a component of the fire starters even
though all of their "recipes" called for it. Could you please explain
what control he should have used? Thank you for your help!
Replies:
Debbie,
Since paraffin wax was common to all recipes, perhaps the judge would have
been favorably impressed if the student had compared each of his
formulations to an identical specimen containing no wax at all.
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