On Friday (02/19/09)  Natalie was awarded 1st place among 2nd grade entries in the 2009 Goodridge science fair. The project was a study to determine kids M&M color preference. Then compare the likes to see if Mars packs the candy to match the kids preference.

The project started almost a month ago with a little research on the web to find age appropriate science projects. Natalie narrowed down the selection between two projects. She was leaning towards the  experiment that studied meteorites hitting the earth. It used marbles and sand. After a little discussion, it seemed that the M&M project would be much easier to manage between the data collection and the display. 

The beginning of the project started with the great M&M count. Natalie started with 5 small bags of plain M&Ms, 2 medium bags of Peanut M&Ms, and 2 medium bags of Peanut Butter M&Ms. Each bag was sorted into seperate bowls by one of the six colors (blue, green, red, yellow, brown, or orange). Once separated, she counted the number of each M&M and recorded the results. 

The next step was to take a poll of the 2nd grade students at Goodridge. Natalie went to school and collected votes about which color M&M was their favorite. She collected and recorded the data. 

Natalie concluded that based on her collected data that the M&Ms are not packed to match the preference shown by the kids in Goodridge Elementary. The kids picked red and blue as their favorites, yet the M&M packages seemed to not favor a specific color. 

[simage=576,512,y,left]

[simage=572,512,y,left]

[simage=574,512,y,left]

[simage=575,512,y,left]