throwback.

My third grade science fair project was called "Does the Nose Know?" The experiment was supposed to determine how much assistance one's sense of smell provided in taste recognition. The idea was good, the title was catchy, and my sister came up with both of those things. But I did do the experiment, and I did it about as well as you can imagine a ten year old doing any scientific work. I cut up pieces of apples and oranges and fed them to family members who were blindfolded and holding their noses pinched. Everyone was able to successfully tell an apple piece in their mouth from an orange piece. In my analysis, I mentioned it might be useful to try the experiment again with more people and using food items that didn't have such obviously different textures. My sister also recommended that last part, and that's how I learned what the word "texture" meant.

And then I cut out construction paper and decorated a hand me down science fair board - three huge and heavy pieces of plywood hinged together and spray-painted yellow. All the other kids bought foam and plastic things from the school for $6 apiece, but we already had this giant thing sitting in the basement from my siblings' forays into public school science fairs. Why spend six bucks when a can of spray paint costs only 88 cents? I glued my hypothesis, procedure, results, etc to the construction paper. Someone was nice enough to take pictures of me performing the experiment. They were not nice enough to suggest that I put on something other than a one-size-fits-all NC State t-shirt that I used as a nightgown.

Despite some real glaring problems with my project, I got an Honorable Mention ribbon at the school fair. And no, that's not the kind they give everyone. Honorable Mention ribbons were light blue, while Participation ribbons were purple. Maybe it's a statement of the level of science done in Lenoir, North Carolina where a little girl in her nightgown reporting that her mother can tell the difference between apples and oranges can win a blue ribbon.

This other kid in my class had a great science fair project. His problem was whether people could tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi in a blind taste test. Although the Coke vs. Pepsi debate was dear to our little rural Southern hearts back then, it is admittedly a much less sciencey problem. But his use of the scientific method was quite fantastic. And the point of these assigned projects was not to make new discoveries but to show kids how actual science gets done.

His mom came into our class with a library cart laden with a pair of numbered Dixie cups for each student, each one containing an inch or so of Cola. They passed out two cups to everyone, asked us to identify the Coke and the Pepsi, and recorded our results. Then they drove their little cart back out into the hallway, where they proceeded down the hall to the other third grade classrooms. I don't know if that kid got a ribbon at all, but he should have. If an experiment done in a nightgown with a sample size of four can get an Honorable Mention, surely another experiment done with pants on with a sample size of 75 deserves something more than Participation.

I was thinking about that kid the other night as I poured an inch of regular Mountain Dew into one glass and then an inch of Mountain Dew Throwback into an identical one. Pepsi has released versions of Pepsi and Mountain Dew sweetened with natural sugars (cane and beet!) rather than high fructose corn syrup (for more info and less stories about cola-based science fair projects, go here). We thought we should see what the fuss was about and decided to stage a blind taste test. Each glass of acidic yellow sugar water was sitting on a torn piece of paper towel with a number scrawled on it: 1 or 2.

I thought carefully about which to put in which numbered glass, trying not to give away the answer with the number. See, Josh had already gone through the same process with Pepsi and Pepsi Throwback. He'd put the Throwback drink into glass #1. So do I switch the glasses, putting the Throwback in glass #2, or do I assume he's going to assume I did that and leave them the same? Or do I distract him at the last minute by pointing over his shoulder and switching the glasses? AAAAAHHHHH!!!!!

In the end, I did the same thing he did by putting the Throwback in #1, and he did the exact thing I did, which was confidently declare that glass #1 contained the regular drink. Our hypothesis, which was that we would totally be able to tell the difference between the regular and Throwback drinks, was wrong. It would be wise to repeat the experiment with a larger sample size than two before making any generalizations, but it should be noted that both participants were wearing pants rather than nightwear.