CHEWING GUM Cristina DeGolGrade 9 Bellwood-Anits High School

Problem  What flavor of Orbit gum keeps its flavor the longest while being chewed: Cinnamint, Spearmint, or Bubblemint?

Research  Seventy to seventy-five percent of what we perceive as taste actually comes from our sense of smell. So if the smell of what you are eating is strong then it should have a strong lasting taste. ents/agesubject/lessons/newton/tstesmll.htmlwww.reachoutmichigan.org/funexperim ents/agesubject/lessons/newton/tstesmll.html

Hypothesis  Cinnamint will last the longest while chewing.  I think this because Cinnamint has a stronger taste and smell to it then the other 2 gums.

My experiment.  To test the flavor of the gums I had 11 different people chew the gum until we felt it lost flavor; we would each use a stopwatch to time how long the flavor lasted. We would eat unsalted, flavorless crackers in between each trial to cleanse our palettes.

Procedure  Step 1)Obtain Orbit’s Cinnamint, Spearmint, and Bubblemint gum.  Each piece of gum is: 1.9g sugar free about 22 degrees Celsius (room temperature) less than 5 calories in each piece stored on a kitchen counter

Procedure (continued)  Step 2) Get 11 people together  Step 3) Don’t eat or drink anything an hour beforehand. Right before testing the gum, eat one flavorless, salt-less cracker to cleanse the taste palette.  Step 4) Chew the piece of gum once every second until the gum, in the subject’s opinion, loses flavor and record time. (start stop watch as soon as you put the gum in your mouth)  Step 5) Repeat steps for two more trials of the same flavor gum

Procedure (continued)  Step 6) For the next 2 days, repeat the previous steps using different flavor gums.

Experimental Design  Experimental Variable:  gum  Experimental Group:  Orbit’s Cinnamint, Spearmint, and Bubblemint gum

Experimental Design (continued)  Control Variables:  How many pieces of gum  The size of the pieces of gum  Having the wrapper off  The person chew once every second

Experimental Design (continued)  Control Variables:  Temperature of gum  Storing of the gum  New packs of gum  How much sugar alcohol is in the gum  What ingredients are in the gum: sorbitol, gum base, glycerol, natural and artificial flavors; less than 2% of: hydrogenated starch hydrolysate, aspartame, mannitol, cesulfame K, soy lecithin, xylitol, colors(beta-carotene, blue 1 lake), and BHT.  Control Group:  Cinnamint gum

Results Trial 1 Test SubjectsCinnamintBubblemintSpearmint Subject 12,5981,1104,530 Subject 22,3781,0173,658 Subject 32,3541,0243,955 Subject 42,4811,2033,516 Subject 52, ,802 Subject 62,6421,3384,186 Subject 72, ,073 Subject 81,9751,4113,962 Subject 91,9511,5063,553 Subject 101, ,451 Subject 111, ,427

Average Data CinnamintBubblemintSpearmint Average2,1501,1113,834 Standard Deviation

Average Data Gum Flavors

Conclusion  My data does not support my hypothesis. Therefore I reject my hypothesis that Cinnamint is the longest lasting flavor gum out of Orbit’s Cinnamint, Spearmint, and Bubblemint gum.  If I were to repeat my experiment, I would probably test different brands of gum instead of different flavors within the same brand of gum.

Results (continued)