Investigative Lab proposal - Assignment Example

Investigative lab proposal Introduction Many people start their day off or pass time with a cup of coffee. Coffee contains caffeine that frequently increases the heart rate or blood pressure (Edwards, 71). A cup of coffee contains approximately 200 mg of caffeine (Edwards, 245). In this experiment, I will use 200 mg of caffeine. As the blood pressure can be affected by environmental factors such as temperature, I will carry out the experiment in our home where we have controlled temperatures maintained at 37 degrees Celsius.

I will use six out of the ten members of our family who are on one month leave from work with an age bracket of between 30 and 50 years. There is no member of my family who has been diagnosed with blood pressure. According to Edward (46), the body absorbs caffeine better in the early morning hours. Therefore, my experiment will be carried out between 7 am and 9 am in the morning.Hypothesis Caffeine affects blood pressure.Materials Needed6 persons, sphygmomanometer, coffee pot , 6 cups, 20 liters of water, Caffeine pills ( 200 mg each), electronic scale, 1000 ml calibrated cylinder, data collection sheet, nontoxic green permanent marker, fan , coolers and heaters.

Methods I will randomly select six of the ten members of our family with age between 30 and 50 and who have not been diagnosed with blood pressure. In each of the group of three members, I will ensure there is at least one member of the opposite sex. Using an electronic scale, I will measure each member of the experiment mass just to be sure that their mass falls around the 68 kg mark. I will use the coffee pot to prepare coffee and three cups to put the prepared coffee every day for two weeks.

The other three cups will be used to serve regular water to the other group of three members. Using the permanent marker pen, I will put a mark on the small finger of the first three people for easy identification of the persons who will receive coffee treatment in the first one week. The unmarked persons will receive regular water during the first week. Each person will be given 500 ml of regular water and will be allowed to habituate to their new drink for 24 – hours. The calibrated 1000 ml cylinder will come in handy in measuring the 500 ml of regular water.

Then, I will prepare the amount of water with caffeine that I will use for the experiment. On average, an adult weighs 68 kgs and the recommended caffeine dosage is 200 mg. Since a cup of coffee contains approximately 200 mg of caffeine, I will administer one cup of coffee every day for seven days for the first three marked persons. 1 hour after taking the coffee treatment, I will use the sphygmomanometer to measure their blood pressure level and record it in the data collection sheet every day.

I will also measure and record the blood pressure of the other three persons who are on regular water.For week two, the marked persons will be taken off of the caffeine solution and put on 100 ml of regular water through day 1 to day 7. The unmarked persons will then be switched from regular water to the caffeine treatment. Just like in the first week, I will allow the persons to be served with water with caffeine a 24 – hour habituation period before starting the test.Table DesignWEEK ONE MEASUREMENTSWEEK TWO MEASUREMENTSTrial in daysBlood pressureTrial in daysBlood pressure123456123456Data Analysis I will analyze the data collected using a t – test on Microsoft excel for windows Vista.

Work citedEdwards, Baker. The Journal of Experimental Biology: Ailnet New York: Herper and Brothers, 2004. Print.