Science Fair

Honey and I embrace the fact that dork, nerd and geek are all adjectives that could be aptly used to describe us.  After all, we did both graduate from Georgia Tech and we have been known to challenge each other to all sorts of terrifying calculus and physics stunts.  Sooooo, you can imagine how abnormally delighted we were to kick off the PCP’s very first science fair project!! 

While the family is encouraged to participate in the project, we really want this to be John’s gig.  And much to our relief, he’s just as into it as we are (I reckon he’s come by it honestly…you know, the whole apple/tree thing.)  We brainstormed project ideas as a family over the course of a few days, and the PCP decided to study “The Effect of Color on Bird Feeding Habits.” 

Here are our assumptions:

• Since birds are colorful themselves, birds can see color.
• Since birds use color to attract mates, birds must be attracted to certain colors.
• Since birds hide in the trees, birds will probably like blue food the best because it will be the most camouflaged.  (This one came directly from the PCP.)

And, our hypothesis is “Birds will prefer blue birdseed.”

We purchased three identical bird feeders and filled them each up with bird seed – one regular (our control group), one dyed red and one dyed blue.  We used food safe coloring and set to work shaking and scraping the seeds around in gallon sized zip lock bags.  The littles adored this phase of the project.  After they were tinted to our liking, we set the birdseed out on pans to dry for a few hours.


We hung the three feeders in the same tree and each day we measure how much food is left in each one.  It’s been so much fun to see the food disappear and we’ve adored watching all of the little birds that are enjoying eating from them.  (Look closely in the second picture – there are two birds dining!)


Stay tuned for the results!!  We’ve a few days left of charting before we start work on the display!!
xoxo