The Rot Museum

Science Experiment of the Month- November 2024

So you have watched the Magic School Bus Meets The Rot Squad and now you are ready to go elbows deep into gross science. Let's do this!

The rot museum is a collection of jars with various foods that you and your family watch rot over the course of a month. Gross? Totally. Awesome? Defiantly.

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Foster Curiosity

The first step in any science experiment is the hook. What about this topic makes you say something along the lines of "What??" "Why would this do that?" "I wonder what would happen if I do this..."

Learn about the science behind rotting food with this article from Wonderopolis,

"Wonder of the day #1370 : Why Does Food Rot?"

Watch some of these videos about Rot, Mold, and Micro Organisms

Why we like it:

The video talks about microbes that are found in food that we commonly eat such as bread, chocolate, and cheese.

Why we like it:

This video explains what mold is while also explaining why we can eat some moldy foods like cheese while others make us sick like in meats.

Why we like it:

This gives you a taste of what you are getting into! Note: if this video is too gross for you, this experiment might be too much for you too.

Watch the dates in the bottom corner, some foods take weeks or months to fully decompose!

Why we like it:

If you are doing this with a family that includes young kids, even the young ones need a hook. This kids song does a surprisingly good job of talking about where we find microorganisms making food go bad.

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Form a Question

What about rotting food are you curious about?

Example Questions

• What is the fastest rotting food?

• If I pick a food from each food type, can I grow different colors of mold?

• Does organic food mold just as fast as foods from the bakery?

How to form your own question

Measurables

With the way this experiment is set up, we have the ability to measure TIME or TYPES OF MOLD (by counting different colors of mold). Since we can only measure time or count the colors of mold, any question we come up with should involve one of these topics. This leaves lots of possible questions to form!

Note: there are more advanced measurables you can try as well such as: temperature, amount of light, or jar size. These are more advanced because they require more work to make sure only 1 variable is changing. We do not recommend these measurables for people who have not done several science fair experiments.

Variables

A variable is the part of the science experiment we are changing.

Note: a well-designed science experiment should have 1 variable. Once more than one thing is changed in an experiment it becomes unknown what exactly the difference was. If you wanted to test which food rots the fastest and half the foods are in the kitchen on the window sill and the other half are in the living room near the air vent, you have 3 things changing: temperature, light, and foods. The tomatoes rotted the fastest of the foods you choose; is it because tomatoes rot faster then celery, because there was more heat from the sun on the tomatoes, or because the celery was kept colder?

- What about rotting food are you curious about? -

 Possible VARIABLES that you can use to compare foods

• 1 food from each food group

• 1 food from every color of the rainbow

• 1 of each type of citrus fruit

• Juicy foods vs Drier foods

• Fresh food vs Packaged food

• Fruits vs Vegetables

• Organic vs Nonorganic

• Breads (Example: 5 different bread brands)

• Apples (Example: 5 different types of apples)

• Fruit Drinks (Example: 5 different juices)

• Grocery Stores (pick the same fruit from 5 different grocery stores)

• Fast food restaurants (example: French fries from 5 restaurants)

• Come up with your own!

Note: Do NOT use meats in this experiment. These will start to smell very very bad quickly.

Forming your question

Now that you have thought about what you are curious about, think about how you want to measure the difference. If you choose '1 food from every color of the rainbow,' do you want to know if colors rot faster than others or if different colors are rotted by different molds? Would it be interesting to investigate if different types of apples rot slower than others, or if they all become moldy with the same color of mold?

Take the curiosity and form it into a question to investigate!

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Make a Hypothesis

Now that you have created your questions, what do you think will happen?

Note: remember hypothesis are never right or wrong that are an informed guess. You should be able to give your hypotheses and explain to someone with a sentence why you think that. That reasoning can be as simple as I've seen it do that on our shelf.

Try this hypothesis forming formula:

If_______, then_______

If I do this, then this will happen. This is a basic logic clause that is helpful to practice in science.

For example:

• If I leave 5 tomatoes from different grocery stores to rot, then they will rot at the same time.

  • (Why do you think that? Because they are all still tomatoes.)

• If I have 5 different types of citrus fruits rot at the same time, then lemons will rot the fastest.

  • (Why do you think that? Because lemons rot fast in the fridge.)

• If I put 5 different drinks out for a month, then 5 different molds will grow.

  • (Why do you think that? Because the juices are made from different fruits.)

Still struggling to figure out how to form your own?

In this experiment, the first part should include what the variable is you are testing, followed by what you are measuring. This formula not only tells someone reading the hypothesis what exactly the variable is, but also what types of results they should expect to see. In the first example you can tell the subject is tomatoes, the variable is different grocery stores, and time is being measured. Even if the hypothesis is wrong, we expect the results to be about different times the tomatoes rotted.

Give it a try!

And remember Science Fair Experiments give us a chance to practice real science. It's still practice, so it's okay to struggle. As you practice doing science fair experiments, you will improve.

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The Rot Museum

Materials

• 4-6 Mason Jars with lids (You can use any clear container with a lid, but we found plastic containers can leak liquid even after hot gluing!)

• Various foods (Stay away from meat as they will become stinky very quickly even with a sealed lid.)

• Paper labels

• Journal and pencil

• Camera

Process

1. After deciding the question you wish to answer, think about which foods you should use in the experiment.

2. Purchase all foods on the same day, at the same store if possible (unless your experiment is about different stores.)

3. Clean all jars thoroughly.

4. Add 1 food to each jar and seal the lid tightly.

   1. Try to keep the proportions the same, you don't want to use half a cucumber in one jar and than enough cereal to fill the second jar.

5. Place all jars on a counter or window sill where they will not be disturbed, but everyone can see them.

6. At least once a week take a picture of the set of jars to keep track of the progress.

7. In your journal keep track of important observations: when the first mold appeared on each food, did the shape of the mold grow or change, what was happening to the food as it started to get mold, and more!

8. At the end of 30 days decide if you can answer your question. Was your hypothesis right or wrong? Why do you think the results ended up this way?

Note: Mold is dangerous to inhale. It is not recommended that you open these containers, mold can cause skin irritation, can be dangerous to inhale, and the containers will not be safe for food consumption.

Note: As an eco-conscious company, our best suggestion for reusing these tools to do this experiment over would be to open the containers outside, while wearing an N95 mask and gloves, and using the hose to clean everything out. Once that is clean, you can send it through the dishwasher on its own cycle and the containers can be stored for another time to try this experiment again. This may seem a little excessive if you have ever cleaned out your fridge and found a 2-month-old cucumber and thrown it away with your bare hands, but some foods you may choose to mold over the month can grow a variety of molds that could be dangerous to your health and without proper scientific knowledge to know which are which it is always best to err on the side of caution.

What Comes Next?

For a Science Fair Experiment, normally you would:

• Compile the data you collected into a table, graph, or chart for people to see.

• Explain the data you analyzed by pointing out trends, key points, or correlations you have found.

• Draw a conclusion about what happened including your hypothesis, whether your hypothesis was right or wrong, and why. This is a good time to do more research to help you understand why what happened happened. For this experiment, you might research common types of molds or bacteria, look at other research people have done on the foods you choose to watch rot, or learn more about why rot happens in the first place. Let your confusion of the data you collected lead you to seek answers.