The Stimulus of the Fortune Fish: Why it Culrs Up in Your Hand
Introduction: The purpose of this lab is to determine what makes the fortune fish curl. According to fortunefish.com, this fortune fish curls according to the fortune. The fortune fish curls due to a response to some sort of stimulus. The fortune fish is a red fish that was made out of a material called cellophane according to fortunefacts.org. According to allaboutfortune.com the fish came in, it has the ability to tell your fortune. Also, according to the bag, you must put it in the palm of your hand. The fortune fish reacts when you put it on your body, but not on something like a table. What is the stimulus that the fortune fish reacts with? Because it reacted when placed on the body, like your palm or elbow, but not on this cold, hard, table, it was hypothesized that the fish is reacting with the heat that our body produces.
Material and Methods: The things that will be needed to test our hypothesis are a pair of hands, a thermometer, ice, and the fortune fish. These will help test if the fortune fish reacts less in a cold temperature, than to a warm temperature, and the thermometer is to measure the exact temperature of the hands in case people want it for future reference. Now, when experiment is conducted, we will first measure a hands not altered temperature, and then put the fortune fish in the hand after wiping all the moisture off, and observe how the fortune fish reacts. Next, the hands will be warmed up by rubbing them together, and after measuring the temperature of the hands, and wiping all moisture off, its reaction will be recorded. Finally, ice will be placed in the hand for 1 minute, and after we measure the temperature of the hand, all moisture will be wiped off, and the reaction of the fish will be observed. This procedure will be repeated once for more accurate results.
Data:
Trial 1 Temperature Observation
Normal Hand 91 F curled slowly
Warm Hand 98 F curled fast and flipped over, twitchy
Cold Hand 86 F barely moves/curls
Trial 2 Ben’s Hand 94 F curls slowly
Warm Hand 97 F curls quickly and twitched
Cold Hand 76 F doesn’t curl
From the results of the trials, it was determined that when the hand was not altered, the fish would just curl slowly, but steadily. However, when we made a hands temperature increase by friction, the fish would curl a lot faster than when the hand was not altered. Also, when the hand was cooled down with ice, the fish would not react at all. This happened in both trials. Basically, what we get from this, is that the warmer that your hand gets, the faster the fish curls, and the cooler that your hand gets, the less the fish reacts/curls.
Discussion: The data collected clearly supports our hypothesis. The hotter that a hand becomes, then the more the fortune fish reacted, however, the colder that a hand became, the less the fortune fish would curl. It will be a good idea to see if any other factor besides heat affects how the fish curls, like moisture, because no matter how much a hand is wiped, there is bound to be some sort of moisture. There should be some trials to see how the fish reacts to moisture.
Resources:
Fortunefish.com
Allaboutfortunes.org
fortunefacts.com
