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Scientific Paper on a Water Flea

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Scientific Paper on a Water Flea
The Effects of Alcohol and Caffeine on the Heartbeat Rate in Daphnia Magnus



Erika Huizenga

Ashley Kofahl

The Effects of Alcohol and Caffeine on the Heartbeat Rate in Daphnia Magnus

Abstract
The projects purpose was to determine the effects of alcohol and caffeine on the heartbeat rate in Daphnia Magnus. Our hypothesis is alcohol causes a decrease in heart rate, whereas caffeine causes an accelerated heart rate, predicting that the more caffeine we give the daphnia the faster it heartbeat rate will become and the heartbeat rate will decrease as we give the Daphnia alcohol. After doing the experiment we found that the more caffeine we added to the Daphnia Magna the faster its heartbeat rate became. We also found that when we added alcohol to the Daphnia the heartbeat rate also increased not supporting our hypothesis.

Methods and Materials
Location: Washtenaw Community College, 4800 East Huron Drive, Ann Arbor, MI 48105 LA building 205 at 12:30p.m. January 30, 2010
Materials: microscope, two glass micro slides, two pipettes, three Daphnia Magna, 2%, 4%, and 6% alcohol, 1%, 1 ½%, and 2% caffeine, aquarium water, a stopwatch, a person to record the data, administer the drugs and water to the Daphnia, and a person to count the heat beats.
Procedure for the control: In order to make sure that alcohol and caffeine are the variables effecting the heartbeat rate we started by capturing a live Daphnia and placed it in a depression slide with a drop of pond water from the culture jar. We removed any extra water with the tip of a paper towel. Next we added one drop of aquarium water to the Daphnia. Then we began to count the number of heartbeats for 10 seconds and then multiplied by 6 to find the beats per minute and recorded the result. After two minutes we repeated the process, and the again after another two minutes to get three reading of heartbeat rate on the control.
Procedure for alcohol and caffeine: To determine the effects of alcohol

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