Experiment ideas?

[tahitiangirl]

For my biology class, everyone has to set up a simple experiment in a topic of interest. I would love to do an experiment on colored gems or pearls but I have no ideas. The experiment would have to involve a title or question, background and research, a hypothesis, experimental design, I would have to designate control and have variables, and a graph or chart. An experimental design is how/what you did in the experiment. This just has to be simple and I don't actually have to do an experiment, but it has to be realistic.
Thanks,
-Steph

 

[tahitiangirl]

Could I do something with the affects of light and heat on an imitation and the real thing?

 

[tahitiangirl]

OK. Here is my experimental question. Does pollution affect pearl-producing oysters and thusly the nacre thickness, quality, or color of a pearl produced by an oyster that lives in polluted water? I have a magazine article but I need more sources to prove this question. Any suggestions?

 

[KAC]

interesting topic, but I'm afraid you really aren't going to find much published information, its just not available.

 

[pearl guide]

I suggest checking fishery journals, specifically in China. There is a lot of this research being done there. I know there is a way to access these journals online but I cannot seem to find it.
You can also use Google translator if you can only find foreign language versions.
For example:
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&u=http://www.sxny.net/html/zjs/bddtView/2006120439162.html&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=1&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3D%25E6%25B1%25A0%25E8%259D%25B6%25E8%259A%258C%26start%3D80%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN

 

[Raisondetre]

I'm actually interested to know about the differentiation of real/fake pearls by applying heat/fire. One of the store owners I know actually burns some low quality pearls to let customers know they're real, but I'm not sure about the basis of that. Not really relevant, just a point of interest of mine.