[Title of your experiment] Fruit Flies and their Preferred Types of Sugars [Purpose (the problem you’re addressing written as a statement or a question)] Fruit flies are known for being unwanted visitors at picnics, especially if there is fresh fruit or sugars present. But do they have a preference when it comes to types of sugars? As bananas ripen, the starch breaks down and the amount of sucrose, glucose, and fructose increase. And honey contains sweet natural sugars that are easy to break down. These natural sugars also give off extremely strong odors, which are very attractive to the common fruit fly. On the synthetic side, high fructose corn syrup contains a massive amount of sugars and its liquid state allows those to be easily accessed. But are fruit flies more attracted to natural sugars or synthetic sugars? This experiment will answer that question by placing containers of foods containing natural and synthetic sugars outside and seeing which containers trap the most flies. [Hypothesis (your educated guess at what will be the outcome)] If fruit flies are attracted to the natural scent of sugars, then more fruit flies will be found in the jars containing honey and banana slices because of the accessibility of glucose molecules in those items and the increased odors they give off. [Materials] 1 ripe banana (cut into slices 1 inch thick) 1 plastic knife 2 tbsp. raw organic honey ¼ cup liquid high fructose corn syrup 2 20-oz. glass mason jars 2 8-sq. inches plastic wrap 2 rubber bands 1 pushpin [Procedure] The ripe banana was sliced into pieces measuring 1-inch thick using a plastic knife and the peel was discarded. The slices were placed into one of the mason jars. 2 tbsp. of raw organic honey was squeezed into the mason jar on top of the banana slices. The jar was covered with an 8-inch square of plastic wrap and secured with a rubber band. The wrap was pulled taught and punctured 12 times with the sharp tip of a pushpin. Then, ¼ cup of liquid high fructose corn syrup was poured into the second mason jar, covered with plastic wrap, and secured with a rubber band. The plastic wrap was then punctured 12 times. Both mason jars were placed 4 feet apart in direct sunlight for 48 hours. The jars were inspected mid-way through (at the 24 hour mark) and then taken back inside after the remaining 24 hours to count and compare how many fruit flies had been trapped in either jar. [Results] After the first 24 hours, the jar containing the sliced bananas and honey gave off a strong rotting odor and the bananas took on a dark brown color. The honey showed signs of crystallization, with visible sugar granules appearing around the edges of the jar. 4 fruit flies were trapped inside and 3 more were meandering around on top of the plastic wrap just near the holes. The jar containing the high fructose corn syrup emitted no odor and showed no visible changes, other than having 8 fruit flies trapped inside of it (3 around the sides of the jar and 5 drowned in the syrup). When the jar was lifted and the syrup was swirled around a bit, it appeared to be thinner in viscosity. After the full 48 hours, the bananas appeared black and the odor coming from the jar was extremely foul. There were a total of 12 fruit flies trapped inside the jar. The jar containing the high fructose corn syrup emitted no detectable odor and contained a total of 17 fruit flies. [Discussion (explain and analyze the results and make inferences] The outcome of the experiment was that the fruit flies were more attracted to the synthetic sugars (high fructose corn syrup) than the natural sugars (rotting banana slices with honey). This could be explained by the extremely high concentration of glucose in the syrup (3 times the amount of sugars per milliliter) and the fact that the honey began to crystallize, thereby making it harder for the fruit flies to get to the banana slices. Surprisingly, the flies seemed to resist the rotting odor in favor of the highly concentrated syrup, despite it giving off no detectable odor. If banana slices had been added to the high fructose corn syrup, perhaps the jar would have trapped even more flies. [Address your hypothesis (do you accept or reject it based on the results?)] As a result of this experiment, the hypothesis that fruit flies prefer natural over synthetic sugars must be rejected and one can conclude that flies keen sense of smell draws them to higher concentrations of sugars (rather than obvious smells of rot detectable by human senses). [Errors (any flaws and how the experiment could be improved)] A flaw in this experiment was that the rotting bananas were not fully exposed to air and it would have been better to place them in the jar after the honey. This also might have had an impact on the pace of rotting and the sugar’s rate of crystallization. To improve this experiment, one might place the jars side-by-side (instead of 4 feet away from each other) to give the fruit flies an active moment of choice in choosing either jar.