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First year doing Science Fair (I haven't been on in a while - I should be more active) and I was thinking about doing an experiment on the effects of Green Tea on memorization. (Like one week we take a memorization sheet, and have someone drink 1 cup of Green Tea and study for 45 minutes, and then the next day and/or after 12 hours they take a test on what they had to memorize. We'd do the same thing but without the Green Tea and see how the results varied, and do maybe...4-5 trials each. What do you guys think? I don't think anyone else at my school has tried this yet. Most people say Green Tea helps with memorization, but I haven't heard of any experiments trying to actually prove it and/or disprove it with a Hypothesis. So then my Hypothesis would be something like "If someone drinks 1 cup of Green Tea and studies for 45 minutes, then the results of their studying will be better than someone who didn't have the Green Tea but studied for the same amount of time because the Green Tea has components in it that help with mental activity." Or something along the lines of that. Do you guys think that's a reasonable project? 

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If I could have a reply that would be awesome. This is the best idea I've been able to come up with so far, but I don't know how good of an actual experiment for Science Fair it'd be.

The basic layout sounds fine and it may be OK for Science Fair depending on what level. I.e. is this junior high/middle school or high school? The main problem I see is not taking into account the many other things that may affect memory such as hours of sleep, presence of any illness, lighting, mood, and so on.
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Yeah, I'm in 7th grade. I'm also altering the experiment slightly. There have been many experiments on how watching TV with extreme flashy lights and visual (extreme visual and auditory overstimulation) can make children between the ages of 6 and 18 less likely to retain information. I'll post more on it later, writing down some notes atm for an English test. 

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Yeah, I'm in 7th grade. I'm also altering the experiment slightly. There have been many experiments on how watching TV with extreme flashy lights and visual (extreme visual and auditory overstimulation) can make children between the ages of 6 and 18 less likely to retain information. I'll post more on it later, writing down some notes atm for an English test.

I think the green tea experiment is fine for that level. I did some looking and found a number of similar experiments at the professional level. The one at the link below sounds very similar in simplicity to what you described and without the complications/controls I mentioned. Mind you it's just for an example and you should record you procedure and results exactly as you do & observe them even if they don't match your expectation/hypothesis. Good luck!

 

Green tea extract enhances parieto-frontal connectivity during working memory processing

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Thanks Turtle! What do you think of this? I thought of another idea...I'll post my hypothesis below. I interviewed a pulmonologist and they talked to me about recent studies involving little kid shows like Spongebob etc. that overstimulate the visual and auditory senses. There were quite a few experiments conducted using the same variable (the flashy lights, intensive audio, etc) where they took an IQ test before and after on children between 10-18 years. After watching the show and their senses having been overstimulated by the TV shows, their IQ points dropped by 5-10 for a few hours. They're still trying to figure out though if the effects can be more permanent. (Which is why now TV is definitely bad for children before going to school). 

 

My Hypothesis that I might be testing (I think my science teacher would love it): If overstimulation of the auditory and visual pathway occurs in children between 6 and 18, then it will affect their long term recall ability because their neurons cannot process new information as well as they would when not overstimulated. 

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Thanks Turtle! What do you think of this? ...

You're welcome Aura. I think both ideas are sound projects for Science Fair. Of the 2 I would choose the tea experiment because it has a more positive potential in the hypothesis while the TV experiment has a detrimental potential.

 

Additionally, supposing both hypothesis were affirmed, that is green tea helps memory and TV harms thinking. Part of the reason for doing such experiments is to find or suggest possible positive actions and I think there would be more success in getting people/kids to drink tea than to get them to not watch TV. :)

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I meant for encouraging more kids to not watch TV immediately after waking up or before going to school. After homework is done you can do whatever you want with a TV. I could also do both experiments and just write a paper on things that can help memory and things that can harm memory recall. Green tea is good for long term memory and can make it so you can remember things the older you get, and remembering will still be very good (So it decreases your chances of Alzheimers and such) but it has caffeine in it, so not many parents would let their kids drink Green Tea until they're over 18 or in College because caffeine can stunt growth or make you shorter, which may also have bad effects.

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I meant for encouraging more kids to not watch TV immediately after waking up or before going to school. After homework is done you can do whatever you want with a TV. I could also do both experiments and just write a paper on things that can help memory and things that can harm memory recall. Green tea is good for long term memory and can make it so you can remember things the older you get, and remembering will still be very good (So it decreases your chances of Alzheimers and such) but it has caffeine in it, so not many parents would let their kids drink Green Tea until they're over 18 or in College because caffeine can stunt growth or make you shorter, which may also have bad effects.

Good points. I can see you are thinking this all through. Feel free to ask more questions if needed and drop in after Science Fair is over and let us know how it went. :)
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