Andrew’s Stomach Ache:
Water Chemistry
Background
It is 3 a.m. and Andrew’s mother and father are sleeping. Andrew comes into the
room waking up his mother because his stomach is aching. His mother said that she knew he
should not have had that supreme pizza, chips, hot fudge sundae, and nachos at the football
party that they had been invited to at their neighbor’s house. She goes into the bathroom
to find an antacid. In the cabinet, she locates the Equate antacid tablets, Equate stomach
relief, and the Tums multi-symptoms tablets. She looks at Andrew and wonders what
medicine is the best.
Task
You and your group (a group of 3) will investigate whether there is any difference
between the three medicines. You will be given the following:
a. cups
b. vinegar (stomach acid)
c. three different medicines
d. pH probe
You must come up with a procedure and carry out your experiment but before you
complete your experiment you need to do a little research.
1. What is an acid? What is a base?
2. What pH does the stomach acid naturally have?
3. What pH causes an irritation to the lining of the stomach?
4. What is a buffer? Does this help or hurt heartburn?
5. What is heartburn and what causes it?
6. Why is the acid important in the stomach?
7. What is the antacid’s job?
8. Name at least 2 ways to measure pH.
In your experiment, you need to identify your variables (independent, dependent, control,
and constants). You need to have the procedures to carry out the experiment. You must
state your hypothesis. You need to obtain data (pH, time it takes to return to normal pH,
etc.). You need to answer the questions that you need to research. You need to write a
paragraph of why we are doing this experiment in this section of the book.
Timeline:
______ Tell teacher the group
______ Answer the research questions
______ Procedure has to be written and approved by teacher
______ Experiment performed
______ Lab Write-Up Due