Science Project ... Un-popped Popcorn Kernels

We are onto this year's Science Project!  Last year we did the Lava Lamp which was a lot of fun, but sadly all our efforts did not go with a good experience from Cole.  NOW at a new school and a different way of grading science projects we are in hopes that Cole will have a good experience with this project.  It took all my effort to assure him that this time will be different and we won't end up in tears like last year, lord I pray so we'll find out Thursday at the Science Fair.

This Year he wanted to do something fun and flashy.  He had me google science project with electricity since that is something they have been doing in school.  We found some cool LED gloves you could make, but to be honest all the projects cost a lot to make. Then I came across a Popcorn Experiment by Sean Boyd.  It had GREAT instructions what to do and how to do.  

Our amazing tutor Jessica and Cole got to work on it, they put in almost a week of testing and making the board.  I was so impressed with how it turned out!  We modeled our board off a picture I found on pinterest, the Popcorn Science Board didn't have a site it was just a picture, please let me know if it yours so I can give you credit.

What you Need:

5 Brands of Microwave Popcorn ($8, 2 boxes at Dollar tree, $2 each for the rest)

2 Bowls

Microwave

Tri-Board ($2.99 Fred Meyer)

Red Paper ($1 Large sheet found at Dollar Tree)

Black Paper ($1 Large sheet found at Dollar Tree)

Yellow Paper ($1 Large sheet found at Dollar Tree)

3M Spray Glue ($4.99 we had a can already or Glue Sticks)

Popcorn Cut outs (Print if you can't find)

Circuit (For Circles and Letters or you can cut them yourself)

What you Need to do:

We placed a bag in the microwave and pressed the popcorn button. Once the microwave stopped we poured the popcorn into a bowl then counted each un-popped kernel and wrote it down.  We then did the same steps with the next 2 bags of the same brand. Same steps repeated with each brand.  We did a trial of 3 on each popcorn brand so an average could be taken to give a true test of how many un-popped kernels were left.

For the board we cut out strips of Red for the look of a popcorn bag.  We used my Circuit machine to cut out circles (used George Font Cartridge), also used this to make the letters.  Computer used for the graphs and the typing of the words, printed on white card stock.  To make the words pop we took the white cardstock and placed on black paper to outline.  We also printed a few clip art pieces to glue on the board.  We hit the garage and found a can of 3M spray adhesive and sprayed everything done.  We used yellow circles to put on the top of the board to look like popcorn coming out of the popcorn container.  We added circles to make it look like popped popcorn for each label.  We took the Pop Pop Popcorn letters and put on the board with a black background.

Question / Problem:

Which brand of popcorn will give the least amount of un-popped kernels.

Prediction / Hypothesis:

Predict which Brand would produce least and the most unpopped Kernels.

Procedure:

Use the above statement on what you need to do.

Results / Conclusion:

Take the #of un-popped kernels of each brand and divide by 3 to get an average.  The average from EACH brand will tell you who has the least and who has the most.  It will also tell you if you were right or wrong with your prediction.

Graphs:

Use Word or Excel to graph your results.  Our Graphs:

We took this data to make a graph / Data Table (We used Excel, I can't get the graph to copy):

Popcorn Brand	Trial 1	Trial 2	Trial 3	Avg.
Act II	45	69	5	40
Jollytime	72	23	2	32
Pop Secret	26	19	21	22
Kroger	46	48	15	36
Primetime	31	38	36	35

Have fun, this is a fun and pretty inexpensive experiment.

Thanks for Stopping by!

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