The Project

Someone had recently been poisoned. An autopsy revealed that the person was killed by what they had last eaten. The victim's stomach contents were also available to be tested. There are three restaurants in question with also what the victim would order if he went there. Our job was to make predictions and then test to figure out which restaurant poisoned the victim.

Macromolecules

The types of foods we would be testing for would all be macromolecules. The four macromolecules are carbohydrates, lipids, nucleic acids, and proteins. We would be testing for all but nucleic acids. First we needed to identify types of foods that could have been in each of the categories. Carbohydrates would be foods like breads, pastas, cereals, and crackers. Lipids would be fatty foods, like oils, cheese, butter, and milk. Lastly, the proteins, which would be foods like all of the different kinds of meat, and a few others like soybeans.

The Three Restaurants

Next, we looked at the three restaurants that the victim could have possibly been too and looked at what he would have ordered. Looking at that meal, we had to determine if that meal contained lipids, carbohydrates, or proteins to see what matched his stomach contents. Here are the three predictions for what the meals contained.

1. Restaurant and Meal: Old Chicago's Meat Lover's Pizza - Our predictions: Contains all three of carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins.

2. Restaurant and Meal: Buffalo Wild Wings' Buffalo Blazin' Wings, celery, and root beer - Our predictions: Also contains all three, carbohydrates, lipids, proteins.

3. Restaurant and Meal: Biaggi's Restaurante Italino's Veggie Pasta with bread and olive oil.

Evidence

To test for evidence, we needed to find the different macromolecules that were in the victim's stomach contents. To do this, we took the results of indicator solutions tested with that substance. The slideshow below shows different kinds of foods that have different macromolecules in them, and they were tested using indicator solutions, showing what a positive and negative result looks like.

Now knowing what positive and negative tests looked like, we were able to find out which macromolecules were tested positive for. After looking at the indicator solutions test results (below), we could determine that only carbohydrates and lipids were found in the stomach contents.

Conclusion

Gathering this data, we were able to single out which restaurant the victim ate at, which is the restaurant who poisoned him.

The victim was poisoned by Biaggi’s Restaurante Italiano. We did an experiment on his stomach and looked at the macromolecules that were found. The two other restaurants both contained protein in their meals, because one had sausage and bacon, and the other had wings. There was no protein found in his stomach because he did not eat any foods before his death that contain protein. The dish that the victim ordered at Biaggi’s Restaurante Italiano contained no protein and only pasta with veggie sauce. If this restaurant did not contain protein in its meal than that means that was where he ate before he died. In conclusion, this is why we believe that he was poisoned by this restaurant.

Reflection

I think that this project went really well, and we worked efficiently to get it done well and on time. I think that the thing that went the best for us was collaboration. We were able to work really well together to complete the project, and we were even done early with the project at a good quality, not rushed through. One thing that we could have done better was communication. I think that it is difficult to judge this, however, because since we were doing this project through virtual learning and on zoom, it was hard to communicate. So I think, given the circumstances normally, it would have been much easier to communicate, but at home and online, it was a little harder. Overall, I think our final product turned out really well, and it was a really interesting project and unit to start the year off.