What is a blind taste test?
We decided that we wanted to have two kinds of surveys. The first
would be run in school and the second online. We brainstormed ideas
until we came up with the one we chose: A Blind Taste Test.
A Blind Taste Test is where people taste something
without seeing what it is. In this case, we wanted to find out what
kind of water [well, town, bottled] kids would like best compared to what
they thought they would like. We tried to control the test so that
it would be equal. These are the steps we took:
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We got 2 gallons each of well water
[from 2 different wells], town water, and bottled water. |
|
We cooled them to the same
temperature so opinions wouldn't be changed because one water was
warmer than another. |
|
We covered all labels so that no
one--including team members--could see which water was which. |
|
We set up a table in the lunchroom
for answering home water questions and tasting the different kinds
of water. One team member checked that the form each was
given was filled out right. |
|
Once it was filled out, the person
would hand the paper to one of the other two team members who
lined up three cups with a small amount of each kind of water in
them. |
|
The person tasted each and told the
team member which one he/she liked best. The team member marked
this on back of the question form. |
|
Fifty students were chosen randomly
for the test from third, fourth, fifth, and sixth grade. |
Before the taste test, kids were wondering where the
water came from and did not sound like they would want to try it.
One kid even asked if it was pond scum water. From things like that,
we figured that we might have a hard time getting fifty kids to do our
test. We were surprised when we had tons of requests beyond the
fifty and kids kept coming up to the table who hadn't been chosen at
all. Everyone had a good time.
For our results, click here.
