The main problem with the experiment was the crushing of the substance that was swabbed. The availability of the mortar and pistol was meek and so sufficient time for grinding the sources was not available to the experimenter. The substance was ground up for different periods of time and so the availability of the source within the water added to the mortar could have been smaller. This could have greatly affected the experiment because when the substance was swabbed onto the auger using a Q-Tip and collecting the source from a solution of water and source, there could have been different levels of source and water being swabbed onto the amylase. The concentration of the source, therefore, could have been greater or less, and so this could have caused a greater, smaller, faster, or slower reaction of the amylase in the substance on the starch in the auger.
Another problem that was evident in the experiment was that the iodine that was used was not diluted enough to allow the digested starch show through the dark blue iodine. The snow pea and carrot could have digested the starch just a little bit, but because the iodine solution was so thick and intense, there was no chance for the human eye to catch the change in the color of the auger after adding the solution. Instead of labeling these two sources as having blue color intensities of five, the intensity could have been something closer to the level of four or three. This would have shown the experimenter that the source had amylase present in it.
A technical problem with the materials used was also due to the iodine solution used. The intensity of the blue iodine color, as stated before, was very dark. It was expected that the visibility of the digested starch would be more evident than it was, but as soon as the iodine solution was added, the visibility of even the saliva started to darken because of the iodine. After five minutes, there was no visibility of any color except dark blue in each section of the auger. This could have made the experimenter, visually miss the color of the other sources right after the iodine solution was added. If there was a change in color of the auger of the snow pea or the carrot, then the change was not seen.
The investigation could have been improved much greater if there was more time to let the source that was swabbed to stay on the auger before adding the iodine. This would have given more time for the amylase in the sources to break down the starch and a clearer result would have been found.
The above first error could have been fixed by gathering more materials for the grinding of the sources, having more time to complete the experiment, and splitting the class into days to do the experiment so that materials were more readily available. The second problem could have been fixed by diluting the iodine solution so that the digesting of the starch could have been more visible. The third error could have been solved by taking a picture of the auger as soon as the iodine was added to the auger. This would have captured the initial reaction of the starch reaction to the iodine.
