Name: Chua Wei Sheng Intake: JAN 2012 Group B Title : The effect of caffeine on heart rate.

Introduction : What is caffeine? Caffeine is a bitter, white crystalline xanthine alkaloid that acts as stimulant drug. Intake of caffeine will affect the heart rate. Why Daphnia is used to test the effect of caffeine on heart rate? Because this avoids the need for experimenting on humans or other larger animals. Besides that, it is easy to measure the heart rate of the pond organism. As the concentration of caffeine increases, the heartbeat of Daphnia increases. When Daphnia is placed inside in water, its heartbeat remains normal. Method : 1. 0.2 %, 0.4%, 0.6%, 0.8% and 1.0% of five different concentration of caffeine solution were prepared. 2. Number of students in a class are divided into 6 groups. Three groups of student, A, B and C conducting this experiment using distilled water as the control, 0.2% and 0.4% of caffeine solution, while the others D, E, F using distilled water, 0.6%, 0.8% and 1.0 %of caffeine solution. 3. Using a pipette, transfer one water flea from a beaker containing several Daphnia which are immersed in water to a cavity slide. Remove water from around the water flea, then add one half drop of distilled water or different concentration of caffeine. Wait for 2 minutes before starting the practical. 4. Place the cavity slide under the microscope and record the number of heartbeats per 30 seconds by using a stopwatch. 5. Tap a pencil on a piece of paper and count up the pencil marks at the end of time period. Number of taps recorded are regarded as number of heartbeats per 30 seconds. 6. A new different Daphnia is used when changing the concentration of caffeine solution. Results: Concentration of caffeine solution (%) Heartbeats per 30 seconds A B C Control (distilled water) 129 156 177 0.2 157 163 181 0.4 165 191 195 Concentration of caffeine solution (%) Heartbeats per 30 seconds D E F Control (distilled water) 151 86 180 0.6 161 145 196 0.8 184 155 217 1.0 196 185 204 Discussion: Generally, from the experiments carried out by group A, B and C, it shows that heartbeat per 30 seconds increase when the concentration of caffeine increases from distilled water to 0.4%. The highest number of heartbeats per 30 seconds in all concentration of caffeine solution is showed by the experiment carried out by group A, while the opposite, that is the highest , is showed by group C. At the same time , the results showed by group D, E and F are not all the same. Theoretically, the number of heartbeats per 30 seconds increases as the concentration of

caffeine increases. The results showed by group D and E are theoretically correct, but the results of group E shows that number of heartbeats increase from distilled water to 0.8 % caffeine solution and decrease as the concentration of caffeine solution increases to 1.0%. This error may due to human errors or the Daphnia s problem. The number of heartbeats showed by the results of group D is higher as the concentration of caffeine increases from distilled water to 1.0% as compared to results of group E. Ways to improve: There are some factors that caused inaccuracy in this experiment. One of them is the problems deal with microscope. The microscope may not functioning well, causing the heartbeat of Daphnia cannot be observed clearly. In other case, students might not know how to use a microscope, therefore making a lot of experimental error when calculating the heartbeat. Students may not aware that there should no any air bubbles in the covered slip as this makes the observation on Daphnia to be unclear. Taps on the paper should be in a continuous manner so as the number of heartbeats in 30s would not missed It will be better if a large size of flea can be used. This is because it can give a bigger and clearer picture. Conclusion : As the concentration of caffeine solution increases, the number of heartbeats increases.