Experiment Idea?
The effects of mild electric currents passed
through Sea Monkey tanks.
-Brian Kobashikawa
Purpose: The purpose of this experiment is to determine
the effects of passing light current through a sea monkey tank.
Hypothesis: Because a sea monkey tank is mostly salt water,
then the first part of the hypothesis of this experiment is that an electric
current will pass through the tank. Because the current is relatively weak,
it is the second hypothesis of this experiment that the electric current
will not be fatal to the sea monkeys. The rest of this experiment is observational.
Equipment: Needed for this experiment is a sea
monkey tank complete with living sea monkeys, aluminum foil, a battery,
a pen and paper.
Procedure: The first step is to create two good sized
strips of aluminum foil. With one of the strips, attach one end to the
bottom of the battery (-) and the other to one side of the sea monkey tank.
With the other strip attach to the top half of the battery (+) and place
on the other side of the sea monkey tank. See diagram for visual example.
Observations: Nothing was noticeable initially,
however within a minute, bubbling began to occur on the (-) aluminum strip.
No effects seem to occur to the sea monkeys at this point (population at
this time was 3) the two larger monkeys seemed to 'play' in the bubble
stream formed by the aluminum strip. One minute later, a colloidal effect
began to occur as an unknown precipitate began to collect on the bottom
falling from the (+) aluminum strip. This is believed to be an aluminum
oxide. No effects to the sea monkey were noticeable even after one swam
through the falling cloud of precipitate. 7 days after the initial experiment,
sea monkey populations remain normal.
Conclusion: Based on the observations, it appears
that the hypothesis was correct in assuming that an electric current would
pass through the sea monkey solution and that the current would prove to
be non-fatal to the sea monkeys. Observations will continue on the sea
monkeys to determine long term effects of the colloidal solution on future
sea monkey populations.
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