Heart Rate Experiment

For this experiment, we were first asked to come up with a question relating to heart rate. This exercised my ability to ask open-ended questions and gather information, and in the end, we came up with the question “How does eating spicy food affect a person’s heart rate?” Once we had our question, we had to create a hypothesis about what the result of our experiment would be. Once that was finished, we proceeded to design our experiment using our skills in experimenting with different ways of doing things. We had to carefully consider the possible outcomes of choices we made in designing our procedure, as we wanted our experiment to be as valid as possible.

Another skill we used was evaluating the credibility of sources of information. Part of creating our hypothesis was researching our topic to back up our claim. In doing so we had to make sure we were using credible and trustworthy sites. Finally, we used our skills in analyzing evidence from different perspectives to draw conclusions about the experiment’s results. Overall, I think this experiment really helped me expand my skills in the critical thinking competency.

Ways I’d like to improve are…

One of the ways I could have improved this experiment was by testing the sauces ahead of time. One of them was less hot than I expected by quite a bit, which meant we weren’t able to effectively test the upper end of spice. I’d also like to improve my ability to analyze results and draw conclusions from them. For example, with this experiment, I feel that there were likely oversights in the conclusion, however they could be results of poor experiment design.