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Zoology Science Fair Project

Energy Drinks and Daphnia Heart Rate

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Energy Drinks and Daphnia Heart Rate | Science Fair Projects | STEM Projects
What happens to a water flea's heartbeat when you add an energy drink to its water? Daphnia are tiny see-through creatures. You can watch their hearts beat under a microscope. You place groups of Daphnia on slides with four different solutions. One slide gets pure water as a control. The other three get increasing amounts of Red Bull mixed with water. After 15 minutes you count each Daphnia's heartbeats per minute under a microscope. The higher the energy drink concentration, the faster the heart rate. Daphnia in pure water averaged 190 beats per minute. Those in full-strength Red Bull averaged 268.

Hypothesis

The hypothesis is that Red Bull increases the heartbeat rate of Daphnia.

Method & Materials

You will separate 40 daphnia into 4 groups of 10 and place them on 4 slides. You will then add 3 drops of water, Red Bull 0.1, Red Bull 0.5, and Red Bull 1.0 to each slide. You will then observe the daphnia under a microscope and count the number of heartbeats per minute.
You will need 40 daphnia, 4 beakers, 3 cans of Red Bull energy drink, a microscope, 4 glass slides, 1 measurement cylinder, 1 stopwatch, 400ml distilled water, 1 eyedropper, and an assistant.

Results

The results showed that increasing the concentration of the Red Bull energy drink also increased the heartbeat per minute of the Daphnia in the solution.

Why do this project?

This science project is interesting because it shows how a popular energy drink can affect the heart rate of a tiny aquatic creature.

Also Consider

Experiment variations include using other energy drinks like Monster and adjusting the room temperature.

Full project details

Additional information and source material for this project are available below.

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