Super Science Fair Projects :: Aerodynamics
7th grade science fair projects spice up the science fair...
Name: Stockton
Grade Level 7th
RESEARCH REPORT
Introduction
Sunflowers are used for many different things that are important to society. One of its more important productions is its use in gasoline, engine oil, and vegetable oil. To help grow this crop, farmers have resorted to pesticides, which contain different chemicals that sometimes harm the very plant it was supposed to protect. Capsaicin, extracted from peppers, is sometimes used as a pesticide and is still being tested.
Helianthus (Sunflowers)
The Helianthus is grown in most parts of the world and is very important to mankind. Many different pesticides are used to protect them, but some actually kill the very sunflower it is protecting. There are 60 types of helianthus; each is a carefully grown and preserved crop. The most common type is about 3-10 feet tall when fully grown, and has a head over 1 foot across. Every head has a disc of tiny tube flowers between a fringe of yellow petals. One sunflower can hold up to 1,000 seeds. Sunflower seeds are rich with protein and oil, which play a part in things like margarine, cooking oil, and diesel fuel. Many kinds are used for food, also. Sunflower seeds are popular snacks. Birds and rodents are also fed sunflower seeds, mixed with other things.
Capsaicin
Capsaicin can be extracted from any kind of pepper and is used in pepper spray, hot sauce, and many other things. Capsaicin is the chemical in peppers that gives a burning sensation; so the hotter the pepper the more capsaicin is in it. It is generally found in the ribs and seed area of the pepper. It serves as important to America though many don’t know what capsaicin even is. It is used in liquid heat for massaging when is diluted, so who knows what it could do without any dilution. It is also used in hot sauce, though extremely diluted. The police and many others use it for self-defense, as it is also used in pepper spray.
Capsicum
The scientific name for peppers is capsicum. There are five different types of peppers, capsicum annum, capsicum baccatum, capsicum chinense, capsicum frutescens, and capsicum pubescens. Each species of capsicum varies in heat and size, as well as where they are grown. Capsaicin can be extracted from each of these but the most powerful capsaicin is extracted from habanera peppers.
Scoville Unit
The first way of measuring pepper heat was invented by Wilbur Scoville. One scoville unit is 100 drops of sweetened water into hot sauce. He added water until the sauce no longer burned his mouth; the amount of scoville units it took to keep the sauce from burning was the heat of the sauce. Pure capsaicin is 16 million scoville units. It is used in liquid heat for massaging, but that’s when it’s diluted.
Essentials for Life
Photosynthesis is literally essential to any and all life. It is a process that is powered by sunlight in plant cells that contain chlorophyll. The plant then releases oxygen, finishing a cycle. The actual chemical process is 6 H20 + 6 CO2 => C6 H2O6 + 6 O2. Oxygen allows animals, including humans, to breathe.
Human Needs
Sunflowers are important to mankind and are carefully grown. Peppers perhaps are less important but still very widely used when it comes to food. They are chopped, blended, cooked, de- seeded, or juiced for various salsas, sauces and other things. Sunflowers and peppers are almost never used together, but it was a brilliant idea for one to help the other. But the question is if it will work. If so, more peppers will be bought, and sunflowers will survive the growing season more often.
Summary
Sunflowers contribute to the many different oils that get us from one place to another like gasoline and diesel fuel. It is used in vegetable oil that many Americans use in cooking. Its seeds are used to feed all kinds of animals from rodents, to birds, and even people. On the other hand, though a bit less important, peppers and capsaicin are almost as widely used. Peppers are chopped, cut, juiced, de-seeded, and blended to serve as food, protection, and now, farming. Peppers are mostly blended and mixed with various other chemicals to make food spicy, or chopped to go in stir-fries or other foods. Capsaicin is even used in medicine by some doctors to be put in prescriptions. Another important use is pepper spray to disable animals and criminals, used mainly for self-defense. Many farmers are also using capsaicin in farming as a pesticide, though most aren’t positive that it will protect and not kill the plants.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank the following people for helping make my project possible:
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