[1] A particularly charming orange and its brethren.
Tucked away in the northwest corner of the Harvey Mudd campus is a grove of cultivated oranges (Citrus x sinensis). At this time of year, their spherical and bright fruits are hard to miss. I walk past this mini-orchard when I visit the Bernard Field Station for my weekly natural history observations, and every time I return from the field station desiccated and coated in dust, the oranges wail their siren call to me. “Come take a closer look,” they beckon. “It’s the perfect weather for orange juice.” But I have the bad habit of doing my assignments at the last minute, and these natural history observations are no exception. “I’ll visit later”, I tell myself. “If I don’t keep moving, I won’t get to class on time.”
One sunny morning, I was running especially late. My spirits were already low from the heat, and I was vaguely aware that once I got to the field station I would (1) sleepily wander around for a while, and then (2) panic once I realized that there was no way I would finish on time. Without realizing it, I came to a stop in front of the orange grove. I stared, forgetting what I was there for. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to not go to the field station. And when I came back to reality, I found that my legs wouldn’t budge.
“IT IS TIME,” the oranges rumbled. “COME CLOSER.”
I turned to leave.
“ON THE WALK TO THE FIELD STATION, IT TAKES FIVE MINUTES JUST FOR THE TRAFFIC SIGNAL TO CHANGE. LET’S BE REAL, YOU AREN’T GOING TO MAKE IT BACK ON TIME.”
I hesitated.
“NO ONE SAID THAT YOU HAVE TO DO THIS ASSIGNMENT AT THE FIELD STATION. IT’S POINTLESS TO DO THINGS THE HARD WAY JUST FOR THE SAKE OF DOING THINGS THE HARD WAY.”
The oranges had a convincing argument. I pulled out my field journal and started writing my entry, relaxing a bit now that I knew I had time to eat lunch. Around me, the oranges seemed to hum in approval. “ORANGE YOU GLAD YOU LISTENED TO OUR ADVICE?”
[2] Natural history observations in my field journal. I start each entry with context that could be important for explaining what I saw that day: location, time, temperature, wind conditions. Then I introduce the species that I’m observing and I include some sketches of it. If I see that the species of interest interacts with other species, I write about that as well.
Most of the observations from this field journal entry were easily explainable. For example, I saw numerous small birds on the ground nearby because it was a hot day and the trees provided shade. I also saw several fallen oranges lying undisturbed, which made sense because our Western fence lizards don’t eat fruit and the predominant herbivore around these parts (the college student) prefers to pick its fruit from the tree. But on the topic of hungry college students: why were there still so many ripe-looking oranges within arm’s reach? We try to explain puzzling observations like this by performing experiments. Here’s a look into mine.
[3] These are my notes on this experiment. Don’t worry about reading this- I’ll summarize the experiment below.
Hypothesis: The oranges growing by the Olin building are left undisturbed because the college student does not consider them worth eating. They taste less pleasant than a store-bought orange, are harder to peel than a store-bought orange, or possess both unfortunate qualities. (Oranges are readily available in the dining hall.)
I considered multiple hypotheses- maybe it’s because few people visit this area of campus or maybe there’s an unspoken agreement to not pick the oranges?- but I decided to test this hypothesis because I was hungry.
Materials: three oranges picked from the orange trees, a tangerine from the dining hall as a control to compare against the oranges from the tree, paper plate
Why not pick just one orange? Because even if you pick oranges from the same tree, each one is different. To make fair comparisons, I needed to get a sense of how much variance there is among these oranges.
Why did I take just one tangerine? Well… because I intended to eat it as a snack. When I got back to my room I realized that I didn’t have a control for the experiment, so the tangerine became the (not very good) control. The control that I really should have used was an orange from the dining hall. Tangerines are so different from oranges in taste and texture that comparing the two fruits is like comparing apples and oranges. (...Wait.)
[4] The oranges + an imposter
Procedure: I peeled all of the fruits by hand, since a student passing by these trees would probably not have a knife with them. I randomly selected two slices from each fruit to taste (excluding the slices that were exposed to the air in the split-open orange, since air exposure might have affected the properties of these slices). Then I randomized the order in which I would taste the slices. Before eating each slice, I drank a mouthful of water and waited 30 seconds so that the taste of the previous slice would not affect my experience of the next slice.
For each slice, I recorded the following properties:
- Which orange it came from (ID)
- How easy it was to peel the orange (Ease of peeling). The easier to peel, the better.
- How chewy the slice is (Toughness of membrane). I don’t mind fiber, but other people do.
- Juiciness, sourness, and sweetness. I considered juiciness and sweetness to be positive traits that would make the orange worth eating, and sourness to be a negative trait that would deter people from eating oranges.
[5] My experimental setup. Oranges (and tangerine) are peeled and ready to go.
Results:
- The oranges were difficult to peel. When I separated the segments from each other, my hands became unpleasantly sticky from the juice. The tangerine was very easy to peel and separate, though.
- The orange slices were fibrous, and some of them had large seeds. The tangerine was tender and seedless. (These traits are typical of these fruits, so I can’t dock points from the oranges for having fiber and seeds.)
- I don’t think there was a huge difference in how juicy the fruits were?
- The orange slices were very sour with not a lot of sweetness. The tangerines were very sweet with no sourness at all.
Conclusion: These oranges are inconvenient to eat. If you peel these oranges as you walk, you’ll be left with sticky fingers while you have no access to running water. They’re also sour, but maybe that’s because they weren’t as ripe as I thought they were? I wouldn’t pick oranges from our trees again, though that may just be because I prefer tangerines.
Though I wanted to compare HMC-grown oranges against our alternative for them (the store-bought oranges found in our dining hall) my choice of control meant that I was actually comparing oranges against tangerines. As a result, I don’t know which of the two options I would prefer: pick an orange from one of our trees, or wait for the dining hall to open.
[6] It’s good to stop and smell the roses every once in a while. (Figuratively speaking. These are orange blossoms.)
These oranges were delightful company, and they showed me that science can happen anywhere, not just in a field station or in a laboratory. No matter where you are- at school or the office, at the bus stop, or in a park- you can ask questions about the patterns you see. And if you test the possible explanations for these patterns, you’re running an experiment! These experiments don’t have to be manipulative experiments like the ones where you water one group of plants more than you water the other. If you want something less intrusive that doesn’t require as much setup, you can do observational experiments by paying close attention to the world around you so that you can answer questions like “how does the number of ducks at the lake change depending on the time of day?” Don’t worry about whether your research question is groundbreaking or not; the value of the exercise lies in taking a break to notice things that you usually just walk past. Even though my own experiment didn’t produce results that I could use, I’m glad that I took that detour on my way to the Bernard Field Station.
Media credits:
[1]: Photo by author
[2]: Photo by author
[3]: Photo by author
[4]: Photo by author
[5]: Photo by author
[6]: Photo by author
what a delightful read :)
ReplyDeletewould be interesting to compare the HMC oranges against the Scripps ones, which are in a higher traffic area along the main footpath to the Malott dining hall.