We have added several changes to our physiology experiment design today in class. We decided to include the athlete vs. non-athlete variable into our experiment for more accurate, precise results and because both groups could create a possible source of error if one were not included, which we could help eliminate by using both groups. The next question we had was: who do you consider to be an athlete? The juniors in our class all participate in some form of physical activity for a minimum of thee hours a week. With that in mind, there is a difference between lacrosse players who play two hours every day five days a week and people in a Yoga class who do yoga for one hour a day three times a week. So yes, we all exercise and keep our bodies moving, but some at higher intensities than others. We decided that when we do our experiment, we will ask our subjects how often they exercise per day. If it's two hours or more, we'll consider them athletes, and if it's less, they'll be in our non-athlete experimental group. This just made the most sense for our age group and lifestyle. It'll be interesting to have a bar graph that will compare (side-by-side) the heart rates for athletes and non-athletes who are similar in height. Will the 5'6" athlete have the same heart rate as the 5'6" non-athlete? That's what we want to determine.
This means that we will need more girls as subjects for our experiment. As of right now, we're hoping to have 12 girls of varying heights who are athletes and 12 girls of varying heights who are considered non-athletes in our minds.
In addition to adding that variable, we also changed the type of physical exercise for our experiment. Instead of running up and down stairs at a fast pace, we are going to measure out 75 yards for our subjects to run (25 yard increments, so each subject will pivot and go in the other direction twice). We hope that they'll run as fast as they can to get their heart rates up. We tested this ourselves today with about 65 yards, and our heart rates increased substantially from our resting heart rates. The 75 yards compared to the stair runs will be less dangerous and more convenient, for we can measure 25 yards out in various locations on campus.
Lastly, we decided that when we time our subjects' heart rate to rest, we are going to do it in fifteen second intervals because it will be easier to keep track of. With these tweaks in our experiment, we are about ready to randomly select our subjects and have them do some running and pulse checking! We also need to complete some further research in order for us to come up with a reasonable, educational hypothesis before we officially start the experiment. It's been a fun experiment design so far!
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