You live in a rural are. Your local radio station reports the results of an experiment a high school student conducted to test the effects of a healthy diet on the saturated fat content of cow’s milk. The student’s father bought 6 cows from two different sellers. Cows from seller 1 were fed the student’s special mixed-grass diet; the other cows from seller 2 were fed the usual animal feed. The student discovered that milk from the cows had lower saturated fat than then cows fed the usual feed. The radio station report created a lot of attention and coverage in other media beyond the local radio station. The student thought he might look into a financial sponsor to promote and even patent his special mixed-grass diet. Based on this limited information and using the scientific method:
I. What problems do you see with the student’s study?
II. Help the student develop a better question followed by a hypothesis. Then …
III. Design a brief experiment to test your hypothesis (make sure to indicate a control) and describe (in brief) predicted results.
(The reading for this week will also help you in this exercise).
http://extension.psu.edu/animals/dairy/nutrition/nutrition-and-feeding/diet-formulation-and-evaluation/milk-components-understanding-the-causes-and-importance-of-milk-fat-and-protein-variation-in-your-dairy-herd
Note: You may get material from the Internet or books, but please include a proper reference or references in your answer (e.g., website URLs, book author and title)
Please do not use Wikipedia, about.com, or other websites that are not peer-reviewed.*.gov sites are OK (e.g., NIH.gov and NIH-affiliated sites – there are many of them). Also, various pharmaceutical company websites like Merck.com, Pfizer.com, Glaxosmithkline.com, etc. can be used for referencing. *.edu sites are mostly OK, too.
