Effects On The Heart

Steps of Experimental Design

1. Identify the Problem or Question
What effect does exposure to extreme temperature, as stimulated by exposure to
cold, have on heart rate?
2. Predict a solution to the problem or an answer to the question.
Hypothesis: If you stick your hand into an ice bucket of water and then take your
heart rate we think your heart rate would increase because your heart is trying to
pump warm blood to your hands
3. Design the experiment to be used to test your hypothesis.
We thought since our body shivers when we get cold our heart beat increases
trying to make our bodies warm again
1) Open logger
2) Plug in Mini USB cable with the Heart Rate Hand-Grip Monitor
3) Take heart beat regular and record results
4) Form hypothesis
5) Ice bath water, 60 seconds.
6) Towel to dry of hands and timer awaits
7) Take heart rate again while using the Hand-Grips
8) Record data and see the results
4. Carry out the experiment.
o Computer with Vernier Logger Prosoftware
o Vernier LabQuest Mini with USB cable
o Vernier Heart Rate Hand-Grip Monitor
o Logger Pro resource sheet
o Project 4.2.1 Medical History resource sheet
o Ice water bath
o Towel
o Timer or watch
o Colored pencils or markers
o Laboratory journal
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o PBS Course File

5. Analyze the data and observations.

1)

2)
Time (s)

Heart Beat Per Minute

1 Minute (60s)

Heart Beat Per Minute In

Ice water

15

79

94

20

82

95

25

80

92

30

78

91

35

76

90

40

76

88

45

81

87

50

85

92

55

85

91

60

85

91

6. State the conclusion.

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The hypothesis was correct, the body pumps blood back into your hands to make
them warm, as well as increase your heart rate.
7. Summary Paragraph
Our experiment turned out to the conclusion we thought. We started by
getting our materials together and putting the mini web quest plus the hand-Grips
to the computer to record results for our experiment. We took regular heart beat
for the first results to see the amount of heart beats and then took the heart beat
again when we put the hands of my partner into ice bucket water. Leading us to
our hypothesis was correct because we said the heart is working to heat back up
our hands raising our heart beat.
After step #7 there could be several options including but not limited to:
Re-designing the procedure would be better to see if we wait longer in the ice
bucket to see if the heart beat would increase even more. We wouldnt change our
hypothesis just to see if we were right again.

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