Science Fair Fun with Bacon Scented Flowers

I am participating in a science fair at my home school co-op, The Learning Collective.  Here is my project:

Project Title:  Bacon Scented Flowers

Hypothesis: I believe that I can make a flower smell like bacon with the right materials.

Background: Previously I did an experiment where I added vanilla and peppermint to water to see if I could make scented flowers.  I found that the peppermint worked the best because of the strong scent. I love bacon and want to see if I can make bacon scented flowers. The question is how can I make water smell like bacon strong enough to pass it on to the flowers.

Variables:        

      ~Water with pieces of bacon

      ~Bacon grease only

      ~Bacon infused water

      ~Bacon grease infused water   

Materials: Scentless flowers, bacon, test tubes, water, scissors, and a sharp knife

Procedure #1: 

Make in advance:  

~ Bacon grease infused water:  Poured bacon grease into a jar, filling it halfway.  Then I added water to fill the jar. I put a lid on it and let it sit for 24 hours.

~Bacon infused water:  Filled a jar ¾ of the way full with water.  Chop up two pieces of cooked bacon and add to the water.  I put a lid on it and let it sit for 24 hours.

Day of experiment:

I cooked 4 pieces of bacon and reserved ½ piece of bacon and all of the bacon grease.  

I have 4 test tubes on a stand.  I prepared them as follows:

Test tube 1: Water with ½ piece of chopped freshly cooked bacon.

Test tube 2: Bacon grease from the bacon I had just cooked.

Test tube 3:  Bacon infused water that I previously prepared.

Test tube 4: Bacon grease infused water that I previously prepared.

 

I cut 4 sunflowers to fit into the test tubes.  I also cut small slits on the bottom of each stem so that the water would pass through quicker and easier.  

I put one flower into each test tube.  

Results: 

After 24 hours, the sunflowers did not take on any of the bacon scent.  The test tube that had only bacon grease turned hard.  

Conclusion:
The sunflowers are large flowers and the bacon scent was not strong enough to go through the flower's stems and produce any scent.

I will try again with a different, smaller flower.

Procedure #2

I am going to use daisy's this time. They are smaller and have no scent.

I am not going to use the straight bacon grease as it will harden and the flower will not be able to use it as a water source.

~Placed one daisy in a test tube with water and freshly cooked bacon.

~Placed second daisy in a test tube with water and bacon grease.

Results:

After two hours, there is a faint smell of bacon on both flowers.
After four hours, test tube 1 (fresh cooked bacon) smelled very bacony; test tube 2 (bacon grease and water) smelled kind of bacony.



Conclusion: 

The smaller flowers worked better than the larger flowers because it was faster and easier to get to the petals.

Freshly cooked bacon in water worked the best, followed by bacon grease and water.  The straight bacon grease didn’t work at all because it was too thick. 

In the future, I would use even more bacon and see if I could get smaller, scentless flowers. 

I wonder if I could grow flowers to smell like bacon??? What if I planted scentless flower seeds and watered them with bacon water?