8+Science+3+Michaela's+MSW+Project

Michaela Oberkfell 8-3 March 4, 2010 The purpose of this experiment is to see how many people are bringing lunch and what type of lunch are they bringing. It would be nice to have everyone bringing lunches to use reusable lunches, but that is too much to ask so we are trying to see if we can push students who are using non-compostable bags to use compostable bags instead. Compostable bags are better for the environment. My Hypothesis is, If we put up signs to ask students to use reusable or compostable bags instead of non-compostable bags, then they will switch the type of bag they use because the cost of using paper instead of plastic is small and because many students probably don't think about or care what type of bag they use, so if we ask them to use paper I think that they will switch. //Safety concerns//
 * Title**: Number of People Bringing Non-compostable Lunches Before and After Education
 * I. Introduction**:
 * II. Materials**:
 * Two sheets of paper
 * Pencil
 * 7th and 8th grade students
 * Computer for printing sign
 * Poking yourself with a pencil - guide line number 26
 * Getting a paper cut - guide line number 26

1. Go to the CCDS middle school cafeteria. 2. For the 7th and 8th grade lunch we will count how many people bring lunch. 3. Count how many people are bringing reusable lunch boxes and how many people bring disposable lunches on Friday the 12th, Wednesday the 17th, Friday the 19th and Monday the 22nd. 4. Look to see how many people are bringing plastic lunches vs. how many people are bringing paper lunch boxes. 5. Make signs telling students who are bringing disposable bags to bring paper instead of plastic. 6. Put up signs telling students to bring paper instead of plastic lunch bags. 7. See how many student are still using plastic bags after the teaching about the better option on Thursday the 25th and Friday the 26th. 8. See if the number of students using paper bags or reusable bags has increased.
 * III. Procedure**:

Dependant Variable- number of people using reusable or compostable lunch bags. Independent Variable- grade levels 7+8 before and after education for a better option. Control group- number of people in 7th and number of people in 8th grade before education using non-compostable bags. Experimental group- number of people in 7th and number of people in 8th grade after education using non-compostable bags.

A1- Total number of students bringing lunch before. B1- Number of students bringing reusable lunch bags before. C1- Number of students bringing disposable lunches before. D1- Number of students bringing paper lunch bags before. E1- Number of students bringing non-compostable lunch bags before. A2- Total number of students bringing lunch after. B2- Number of students bringing reusable lunch bags after. C2- Number of students bringing disposable lunches after. D2- Number of students bringing paper lunch bags after. E2- Number of students bringing non-compostable lunch bags after. Percents Before Advertisement
 * IV. Data**:
 * || A1 || B1 || C1 || D1 || E1 || A2 || B2 || C2 || D2 || E2 ||
 * 7th 1 || 22 || 13 || 9 || 8 || 1 || 27 || 17 || 11 || 8 || 3 ||
 * 8th 1 || 12 || 6 || 6 || 3 || 3 || 18 || 8 || 6 || 2 || 4 ||
 * 7th 2 || 30 || 22 || 8 || 8 || 0 || 20 || 13 || 7 || 6 || 1 ||
 * 8th 2 || 12 || 6 || 6 || 5 || 1 || 11 || 7 || 4 || 2 || 2 ||
 * 7th 3 || 18 || 12 || 6 || 5 || 1 || X || X || X || X || X ||
 * 8th 3 || 13 || 7 || 6 || 2 || 4 || X || X || X || X || X ||
 * 7th 4 || 29 || 16 || 13 || 9 || 4 || X || X || X || X || X ||
 * 8th 4 || 15 || 5 || 10 || 6 || 4 || X || X || X || X || X ||
 * Average || 18.87 || 10.87 || 8 || 5.75 || 2.25 || 19 || 11.25 || 7 || 4.5 || 2.5 ||
 * || 7th 1 || 8th 1 || 7th 2 || 8th 2 || 7th 3 || 8th 3 || 7th 4 || 8th 4 ||
 * % of all || 4.54% || 25% || 0% || 8.33% || 5.55% || 30.76% || 13.79% || 26.66% ||
 * % of disposable || 11.11% || 50% || 0% || 16.66% || 16.66% || 66.66% || 30.76% || 40% ||

Percents After Advertisement
 * || 7th 1 || 8th 1 || 7th 2 || 8th 2 ||
 * % of all || 11.11% || 22.22% || 5% || 18.18% ||
 * % of disposable || 27.27% || 66.66% || 14.28% || 50% ||

Percent Averages
 * || Total % of All || 7th % of All || 8th % of All || Total % of Disposable || 7th % of Disposable || 8th % of Disposable ||
 * before || 14.33% || 5.97% || 23% || 28.98% || 14.63% || 43% ||
 * after || 14.13% || 8.06% || 20.20% || 39.55% || 20.78% || 58.33% ||

The trend in this graph is that after advertisement there was a slight increase in the average number of people who were bringing reusable bags and a slight decrease in the average number of people bringing Disposable bags. Also, The average number of people bringing compostable bags went down and the average number of people bringing non-compostable bags went up. The last thing that happened was that the average of total number of people bringing lunch went up.
 * V. Analysis**:

My hypothesis was partly supported because the average number of reusable bags went up and the average number of disposable bags went down. That data supported my hypothesis, but there was another piece of data that didn't support my hypothesis and that was that the average number of non-compostable bags increased and the average number of compostable bags decreased. Some of the problems with our experiment were the lack of waiting time after putting up the advertisement. That was an experimental error. Another error was that another group was also using posters at the same time as us and their posters were distracting people from our posters because their posters were brighter. This was a human error because we should have talked to the other groups that were using posters. We didn't face many challenges I was able to be there every day to collect data. I was able to develop a pretty organized way to collect the seventh grade data but it wasn't perfect. The 8th grade I had no problem with because I know everyone's name, so I just wrote down names to keep track of data. To solve these problems we should have made brighter posters, let there be more time before we started collecting data and collect after data for longer, and Come up with an even better and more efficient way to collect data for the seventh grade by putting more thought into it. VOICETHREAD: []
 * VI. Conclusion**: