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Show Lollipops lead to science honors by Nan Chalat Call her "Ms. Scientist 1985." Rachelle Argyle, a ninth grade student at Park City High School (PCHS), has earned the title. She walked away from last week's Weber State College Science Fair with top honors, including the Outstanding Scientific Achievement Award and Best Ninth Grade Woman Scientist. More than 200 students from 12 high schools participated in the competition, said PCHS science teacher Linda Preston. "Rachelle's awards are quite an accomplishment." accomplish-ment." Argyle won her accolades on the basis of a science fair project with a deceptively simple premise but the experimental design was so well conceived the judges couldn't help being impressed. The basic equipment consisted of a rainbow collection of homemade . lollipops which were used to determine whether people use color as a cue to recognize different flavors. Some of the green suckers were mint-flavored, but others were raspberry. There was also a trick yellow sucker flavored with watermelon water-melon and a flavorless red lollipop.- As Argyle suspected, color exerts a strong influence over flavor recognition. But she didn't stop there. She also tested different age groups, from preschoolers to senior citizens, to see whether the results varied (they did) and she even tested men against women (no significant difference). During her experiment, Argyle learned that taste-bud sensitivity seemed to peak at age 11. The older subjects relied more heavily on color and were more easily fooled by the inappropriate color cues, Argyle said. "The results were really interesting. interest-ing. Preschoolers overlapped color and taste, but the 11 year olds were able to discriminate the correct flavors regardless of color," she said. In all, of the other age groups 15 year olds, 35 year olds and 73 year olds Argyle found a much higher percentage of wrong choices, mostly logical choices based on the color, not the taste, of the lollipop, she said. For her efforts Argyle won a year's subscription to Science 85 magazine and a check for $25 that and the admiration of her classmates and family. |