8 THE FOOD EXPERIMENT

CHAPTER 8 THE FOOD EXPERIMENT All this thinking about food made me hungry. My stomach gurgled loudly. Sassafras growled. "Silly Sassafras!" I ruffled his fur. "I'm just hungry for lunch. Let's go back to the house." As we walked, I realized I had a great question for an experiment. I grabbed my brand new science journal and sat down with my sandwich. On the first

page, I wrote: QUESTION: What do baby dragons like to eat? Hmmm. The baby dragon had scales like that little snake. I bet he was a reptile. If snakes ate worms, maybe dragons did too. Sure, this baby dragon was a lot bigger than the baby snake in the forest. So maybe he'd eat a lot of worms. I knew I should try several different kinds of foods, just in case. I worried it might be hard to get the baby dragon to eat, so I picked some of my favorites. I set my choices on the kitchen table and wrote them all down. MATERIALS:

worms, apple slices, eggs, cheese, marshmallows, cereal, granola, bar. Now to make a guess. I would eat the marshmallows, but that baby snake ate the worm as if it tasted like a marshmallow. I shrugged. Maybe worms were like the reptile version of marshmallows? HYPOTHESIS: I think he will

eat worms. (Sorry, worms) Now I needed to set up my experiment. Every time I'm experimenting, my mom always tells me the exact same thing: "Remember to change only one thing, and keep everything else in your experiment the same." And by every time, I really mean she says it every time. I wanted to change the kind of food I was giving him, so I needed to keep everything else the same. I got seven of the same white plates out of our cabinet. I measured out the same amount of each kind of food — one kind of food per plate. I grinned. This experiment would make my mom happy. MATERIALS:

One handful of each worms, apple slices, eggs, cheese, marshmallows, cereal, granola bar,13 and14 seven15 white16 plates17 the18 same19 size. 20Next I decided what my steps would be. 1. Set one handful of each food on each plate at the same distance from the baby dragon. 2. Step out of the pen and watch him. 3. Write down what he eats.

All set! I gathered my supplies in my arms and tucked my science notebook under my chin. When Sassafras and I got to the barn, I was surprised to see that the dragon was looking around a bit. "Hey, little guy," I said softly. "I've got some foods here for you to try!" I set each plate of food the same distance away from the dragon. He watched me with big, curious eyes. Once everything was in place, I stepped out of the pen to take notes. The baby dragon got up and carefully licked the food on the first plate. The cereal stuck to his tongue! He scrunched up his face, jumped back, and pawed at his tongue. Whoops!