This introductory lab introduces students to the concept of hypothesis testing. Students determine if Double Stuff Oreo cookies really do contain double the amount of stuffing.
This is a fun and “tasty” lab this is simple to conduct. Students have already learned how to calculate standard error using a sample set of data. Now, they simply scrape the filling out of the cookies and weigh the mass to compare the regular to double stuff.
Then, they create a graph and add error bars to show either reject or accept their hypothesis based on the degree of overlap between the error bars. I have done this lab every year and consistently find that double stuff Oreos really do have double the amount of stuffing!
The final task is completing a Claim Evidence Reasoning chart. Example of Reasoning:
The double stuff Oreos had double the filling. The data show that on average the Oreos that were double stuff had 26 g of filling while the regular ones had only 12 g of filling. The graph shows that if the data were doubled, the mean for the regular Oreos would be just under the mean for the double stuff Oreos, 24 g. The 2 SEM bar overlap shows that with 95% confidence, the means are similar between the double stuff and the doubled regular Oreo data set, therefore, we fail to reject the null hypothesis.