8+Science+4+Adelle's+MSW+Project

Adelle Bortz / Section: 8-4 / March 4, 2010 **
 * The Comparison of Costs Between Disposable and Reusable Cups in the Bissell Campus Cafeteria

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This experiment had one sole purpose, which was to figure out how reusable cups benefit the school and to see if they would be a smarter choice for the cafeteria to use, rather than using disposable cups. The hypothesis conjured was: //If Charlotte Country Day Middle School switches to reusable cups, than we will save more money than using disposable cups.// The starting point of this experiment was to investigate and collect information on the use of disposable cups at Charlotte Country Day Middle School. The next step was to compare the disposable cups to the reusable cups that the Lower School uses, and organize the data to tell which cup would be more beneficial to the school by spending less money.======


 * II**. **Materials**
 * Collection of research about disposable cups and reusable cups
 * School Laptops


 * || **Safety Concerns** || **Guidelines** ||
 * 1. || Conduct yourself in a responsible manner at all times || #1 ||
 * 2. || Follow all written and verbal instructions carefully.If you do not understand a direction or part of a procedure, ask the instructor before proceeding. || #2 ||


 * III. Procedure**

1.Gather some information by generating emails to the cafeteria staff about proposal.  //Hey Mr. Houlditch and Mrs. Marsh, // //I'm Adelle Bortz an 8th grade student, and in science class, my partner and I, Jill Levinson are doing an experiment on the affect of reusable cups and disposable cups in the Country Day cafeteria. We are hoping to come to the cafeteria sometime next week to count the disposable cups in the cafeteria, replace them with reusable, and see how they benefit our school. But first of all, we have a couple questions to ask you before we start out experiment. // //-How much do the disposable cups cost? // //.5 EACH // //-How many do you sell? // //We do not charge // //-What is the average money you make selling the disposable cups? // //We do not charge. // //-How many do the students buy? // //400 per day. // //-How much does it cost to have garbage taken away of disposable cups? // //The school takes care of this. //
 * 1st email:**

//Thanks, // //Adelle Bortz and Jill Levinson //

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">**<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">2nd email ** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">: <span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">//<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Hey again Mrs. Marsh, It is Adelle Bortz and Jill Levinson and we have some more questions concerning our 8th grade science project. How much does each disposable cup cost? When you answered the question was it 50 cents, half a cent, or something else entirely? Is this the cost to the school or the cost to Aladdin or another entity? // //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Five cents each //

//<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">-When you stated that the students buy 400 cups per day, was that an estimate or an average based on fact? // //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Based on fact we can pull those reports from our registers. // //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Where do you buy your forks, knives, and other eating utensils? // //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">US Foods //

//<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Would you mind if we continued to email you with more questions? // //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">No // //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Thanks again- Jill and Adelle //

//<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">2. Collect additional data //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> by visiting the cafeteria and asking Vann for information.

3. Organize data and decide by the information uncovered, which cup is more efficient for Charlotte Country Day Middle School.

4. Appeal to school about the results of our experiment, and how changing the type of cups could affect our school.

Independent variable: type of cup (disposable or reusable) cup options Dependent variable: the total cost


 * IV. Data**
 * || Reusable || Disposable ||
 * Amt. in tube || N/A || 80 ||
 * Amt. to a case || 72 || 2000 cups ||
 * How many cases per week || N/A || 1 ||
 * Cost per case || $90.00 || $95.57 ||
 * Cups sold in a day || N/A || 400 per day ||
 * Cost to school in 1 year || $630.00 || $3,440.52 ||
 * # of cases bought(1st YR) || 7 || 36 ||
 * # of cases bought following YR || no cases || 36 cases ||


 * V. Analysis**

This informing graph displays the price of a case of disposable cups ($95.57), heavily going up as one school year goes on, and the price of the reusable cups remaining the same throughout the school year. This graph shows that Charlotte Country Day School would save a startling cost of $2,810.52 and help stop the process of wasting trees if we switched to reusable cups!


 * VI. Conclusion**

In this experiment the hypothesis was most definitely supported, Country Day will save more money if we switch to reusable cups. This is true because the cost-benefit analysis that the graph of data shows is that the Middle School is continuing to buy more cases of disposable cups once a week for a whole year and spending an overall total of $3440.52... While in comparison, the Lower School uses reusable cups that can be used over and over without buying a new case every week and only spending $630 during one school year. The challenging part of collecting data was figuring which questions were important and which ones should not be asked, and finding a right time to ask the Cafeteria workers about the both types of cups. Another concern about the data collection was we did not check if the data we received was exact, and not an estimate by the people at the cafeteria. This would be an Experimental Error because we made the mistake of not including this important step of the Lab into the procedure. Another thing to note would be that it took a longer time specifically to collect the data about the reusable cups because Vann had to find the information through the Lower School and the cafeteria at the Middle School is not laden with any reusable cups at all. A solution to stop wasting money, trees, and time buying a case costing $95.57 once a week, is to take the more cost beneficial route, which would be to switch to reusable cups in our cafeteria, which would save us a grand total of $2,810.52. The only questions we have about moving forward is how Country Day will clean the reusable cups, if they can wash, and if there are any health concerns. We can conclude that reusable cups will be a much better alternative to the Middle School Cafeteria because of the benefits of the total cost in a year, the less time wasted, and the less trees used to produce the disposable cups. This is will be a minor change, but a monumental improvement to the Middle School Cafeteria.


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