California Black Worm Lab

The purpose of this lab was to identify the substance (water, depressant, or stimulant) that was added to each of the separate containers of California Black Worms by observing the heart beat of a worm from each container.

To determine which of the different solutions (A,B,C) was which I applied my new knowledge from statistics. With the data we collected in class on Friday, I created three different
stemplots for substance A, B and C.

When I did that, I found that A had the highest values for number in the tens (eg. 11, 12 ...). This led me to conclude that Substance A was the depressant since the heart beat counts were so low.

When I created the stemplots for substances B and C, I found that they both had the highest values for numbers in the twenties (eg. 21, 22 ...). From here I concluded that substance C was the stimulant because it had more values in the 30s than substance be did. I also based my conclusion on my observations during the lab. When I was counting the heart beats of the worms in substance C I can remember that before I was able to get the worms out they were all almost fighting each other and all  intertwined into a ball.

Therefore, this means that substance B is the water, because during the lab I also observed that these worms seemed to just swim calmly.