Title: How does caffeine affect how accurately people can do

math?

By: Ms. Sowin

Perseverance Science Teacher

Question

• My scientific question is “how does caffeine affect how accurately people can do math problems?”

Hypothesize

* I hypothesize that caffeine will cause people to make more mistakes because it raises their level of anxiety causing them to be more nervous.

Research # 1: What is caffeine?

• Caffeine is a drug that is made from plants. It is a stimulant which means is causes your brain to temporarily have higher alertness.

• http://www.kidshealth.org/teen/drug_alcohol/drugs/caffeine.html

Research # 2: What has caffeine in it?

• Caffeine is often found in coffee, chocolate, and soda. It is even in tea, energy drinks, and some over-the counter medicine, such as pain relievers.

• http://www.kidshealth.org/teen/drug_alcohol/drugs/caffeine.html

Research # 3: What are the effects of caffeine?

• Caffeine can temporarily give you energy and put you in a better mood, but it can also cause you to be dizzy, anxious, get headaches, have to pee often, and affect your sleep. Long term, caffeine can weaken your bones, give you heart problems, and make you more irritable when you don’t have it.

• http://www.kidshealth.org/teen/drug_alcohol/drugs/caffeine.html

Research # 4: Is any caffeine OK?

• A healthy amount of caffeine for adults is 200-300 mg. Teens should have no more than 100 and kids should have even less. One can of soda has about 40 mg of soda.

Procedure

• 1. Step 1:First, participants were checked for heart problems. Only participants without heart problems were allowed to participate.

• Step 2: Next, participants were given a drink of water and pills. Some participants were given real caffeine pills and some participants were given fake caffeine pills. The participants did not know which type of pills they received.

Procedure

• Step 3: After 20 minutes, the participants were given a 10-minute long math test.

• Step 4: The tests were graded and compared.

DataGroup % Correct on Math

Test

People with 400mg Caffeine

55%

People with No Caffeine

70%

Conclusion• In this experiment, I tried to find out if

caffeine made people more likely to make mistakes during a math test. I hypothesized that people would make more mistakes if they had caffeine because some people say that caffeine makes them feel nervous. After doing the experiment, I found that people did actually make more mistakes on their test if they had had caffeine. Therefore, if you have a math test to take in the real world, you should not have caffeine!

References

• http://science339.wikispaces.com

• http://www.kidshealth.org/teen/drug_alcohol/drugs/caffeine.html