my research topic for my Biology extended essay is good, right? feedback, please!

[mangoendurance]

Hi,

i'm writing my extended essay in Biology, attempting to answer the question “how much would it affect an athlete's homeostatic system if they choose to eat the seemingly unfavourable selection of a spicy food before exercising?” .

I'm doing an experiment on FIVE students, both completing the experiment twice - once eating one plain slice of white bread, and the second time eating one slice of white bread with ten added drops of tabasco. their temperature is taken before and after they eat, and one minute after they've eaten, they will run up and down two flights of stairs five times, and their temperature will be taken again after this exercise.

my question is, what do you think about this topic and my experiment? is it allowed? it's not exactly harming humans, though...

ALSO, i'm having troubles defining my "independent variable" and "dependent variable". can someone establish and point this out for me please?

please give me as much feedback as you can. i'd really appreciate it.

thanks!

Edited January 18, 2010 by mangoendurance

[deissi]

To be honest, it seems to me like you're trying to research something that's a little too complicated for an IB EE. For starters, IB doesn't like data collected from humans (it says that in the EE guide under Biology), and, like you mention, defining the variables will be extremely difficult because you have several different measurements that need to be interpreted. When there are several variables (i.e. no constant variables), making plausible conclusions is very difficult.

If you perform your experiment as described above, your dependent variable is the persons temperature and your independent variable is what they eat since that is what you are changing.