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Topic lacking "story", my instructor asks why do I do this?


drackele

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I am doing a chemistry EE, and have come up with a basic idea already

I hvae 2 similar research questions: How will the temperatures of water used to brew coffee affect the coffee content?

and Investigating the different caffeine concentrations of different drinks.

So i found a method to extract the caffeine and already did a lot of research, but then my intructor says that this EE lacks a "story"

He askes me why am i doing this EE, like an overall reason. Something like caffeine content affecting health issue. ( I came up with that but my instructor does not like it ) Help anybody?

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Hmmm...not very clear since I do not know what you suggested to your instructor. Maybe you could research on how different caffeine concentrations in different drinks affect teenage energy levels or the amount of time they can spend working.

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Maybe just think about the practical applications - namely, how long should you leave the kettle to cool down for before making yourself a coffee in order to get the maximum coffee/caffeine hit? That's how it would be used, no? For people to figure out how they should act in order to stay most awake. Et voila, a story.

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Try, how do other substances inhibit the absorption of caffeine? You can analyze which caffeine product is stronger or something based on the other ingredients or when you extract the caffeine see how strong it is. Something along the lines.

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Relating to the temperature question, finding the coffee content would enable you to predict what temperature coffee should be brewed at to provide you with information relating to different caffeine absorption levels. This can help you and then you can help people understand how coffee should be made to influence the amount of caffeine desired.

OR

Various drinks having differing caffeine levels may enable people to choose which drink is best suitable to drink at any given time. For example, (this is just made up) a cup of hot chocolate (state the quantities) has less caffeine than a cup of coffee. The coffee may result in being energetic for 3 hours, while the hot chocolate may provide a 2 hour boost. Based on that you could come up with a chart or a scale of drinks that list the different levels of caffeine and how long each drink would give the drinker energy.

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How about caffeine and teens

i know that teenagers should not take in too much caffeine

but many people drink multiple energy drinks in a single day

i can talk about how much caffeine an average teen should intake and then using the data collected choose some drinks that i think are appropriate

but the problem is i only found out a way to extract caffeine from coffee

i cannot find anything on extracting from soft drinks

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Too bad

my teacher says that i have to change my topic

the caffeine extraction method is unreliable since there may be many other chemicals

and no one would drink cold coffee

the results might be insignificant

so any other ideas?

Feel like doing food chemistry

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How about checking out nutrient content of foods? Lots of people are health freaks (no offense) these days, while others really need to worry about theirs.

Contamination of food?

Research on how today's so-called "fresh foods" have chemicals that harm the human body.

Check out pH levels of different foods and set limitations on intake so as to prevent harm.

You could also research biofuels made using fuels - corn, sugarcane, ...

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If you do how much coffee is in water from brewing it at different temperatures, you're basically just figuring out the solubility at different temperatures, I think that's why he said it lacks a story. Why are you doing a solubility lab with coffee? Is there more to talk about for 4000 words besides how soluble coffee is in water?

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- Effect of sugar free chewing gum versus gum with different levels of sugar affecting the pH levels in the mouth

- How does the pH level of foods affect their decomposing level?

- Comparison of (any mineral, eg. Iron) intake diets in (country)

Then try looking at different brands of coffee. That should do it. Your idea is pretty cool. :)

This actually has been researched before and is one of the successful Extended Essays provided by this site: http://jfk.dpsk12.org/IB/DP/StudentInfo/documents/Examples/Chemistry%206.pdf

In this case, tea is used.

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Ohhh. Why is your teacher so demanding?

Now, back to my ideas:

How about you change concentration/temperature of any given chemical that stays constant and measure the pH of it at different temperatures/concentration levels?

In this case, the chemical remains the same, but one or if you choose, two, variables are changing.

Better?

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Thank you rainAl for being so supportive and willing to help

but my teacher is sort of a pain in the ass

i tried that idea before

he said it was too simple and not practicle

like no one would drink cold coffee

I even tried the nutrition values of different cooking methods, be it steam, boil, juice

but then he said

vitamin C and nutrition values are overused

keep thinking

and my deadline is tomorrow

And for the coffee bean comment

no that does not work because antioxidant levels are too hard to test

at least at my school

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