Controlled Experiment

The reason for having a controlled experiment is so we can see how the affects we make to the experiment affect the corn. This is the controlled experiment because we change everything we see fit to keep the organisms alive. If we think we want to test the experiment with bugs, we bring them in. We need to make this controlled so we can get a better understanding if we change it ourselves instead of watching it happen in nature. Maybe for example, the corn is the dependent variable because it depends on everything else to keep it alive. Another kind of dependent variable is the seed for the corn. They are the dependent variables because if nothing else does its job to help these two things out, they will both die. The independent variable might be something such as the bugs because they don't need anything else to keep them alive when they can fend for themselves. A second type of independent variable is the water. The water is independent because nothing keeps it alive, it keeps the other organisms alive.
         We have been talking about placebo's in class, a placebo is actually a sugar pill that comes in many forms. It is all about tricking our minds, if we believe its going to decrease pain or help you play better in sports, it will. Another thing we need to know about if we are discussing placebo is the double blind trial. The double blind trial is when a doctor administers the patient or tells the patient he is giving them the actual drug, then it will work for the patient. If they tell them they are simply just giving them placebo, then they just blew it for the patient!

Here is the link for the double blind trial and there is also other information if you're interested:

http://www.ukskeptics.com/article.php?dir=articles&article=double_blind_trials.php

The other useful websites I found while we performed this experiment are under the words that are highlighted in blue.