While all of our dead stuff containers were doing their "thing," we did a lot of figuring out about what it meant to control an experiment. Mrs. Brinza set up a controlled experiment as these conversations were unfolding, collecting data on some blueberries she had in her fridge and a jar. Here's what happened:
The jar was never opened and when Mrs. Brinza weighed the jar, the weight never changed. This was interesting to us as we noticeably saw some changes in the jar. The mold was definitely getting bigger and the blueberries were shrinking.
This made us think two things:
1. The mold spores had to be present on the blueberries at the start. We never saw them, but since the mold grew, they had to have been there (just really tiny).
2. Since the jar was sealed, however much bigger the mold got was directly related to how much smaller the blueberries got. We know this because there wasn't a weight change!
We modeled this together, and now we're seeing how when all the weight is accounted for, we don't lose any piece of anything. The blueberry "pieces" go into the mold, and the mold only gets bigger by the number of "pieces" of blueberries it consumes.
This made us think two things:
1. The mold spores had to be present on the blueberries at the start. We never saw them, but since the mold grew, they had to have been there (just really tiny).
2. Since the jar was sealed, however much bigger the mold got was directly related to how much smaller the blueberries got. We know this because there wasn't a weight change!
We modeled this together, and now we're seeing how when all the weight is accounted for, we don't lose any piece of anything. The blueberry "pieces" go into the mold, and the mold only gets bigger by the number of "pieces" of blueberries it consumes.