HonBio Day 1

In our first class, we separated into groups of two to conduct experiments with milk, food coloring, and dish soap. Our goal? To understand why the milk swirled around so quickly once a drop of dish soap was added to a pan of milk with drops of food coloring on top.

For part 1 of our experiment, we decided to recreate the video originally shown to us. However, we also repeated the same procedure side-by-side, but using water instead of milk.  Our hypothesis was that the reaction was caused by the bonding of the nonpolar characteristics in the soap and the lipids in the milk.  Thus, if the water did not have the same reaction, our hypothesis would be proved.

Here are the before and after photos from this part of our experiment. We used three drops of yellow food coloring and three drops of blue food coloring in each petri dish.

BEFORE

AFTER

As you can see, the milk and water had the exact same results that we hypothesized.  However, to ensure our accuracy, we tested this 2 more times, each time obtaining the same results.

The final part of our experiment was to test this reaction with Whole Milk instead of 2% milk. We predicted that since Whole Milk has more fats than 2% milk, it would react more with the dish soap. Here are the before and after photos from this part of the experiment:

 BEFORE

AFTER

As shown by the pictures, the reaction was stronger. Though, since the difference in the amount of fat between the two milks is small, the difference was only minimal.

Finally, the whole class came together and created this visual representation of everything we worked with and discovered:

Looking forward to Honors Bio Class 2!!!!!