KENYA SECONDARY SCHOOL SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING

FAIR 59TH EDITION

CATEGORY : BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE

TITLE : EFFECT OF BREAKFAST ON ACADEMICS

PRESENTERS : SAMUEL JOHN

NDOTO EMMANUEL

SCHOOL : MAZERAS HIGH SCHOOL

SUB-COUNTY : SAMBURU

LEVEL : SUB-COUNTY

VENUE : TARU GIRLS SECONDARY SCHOOL

DATE : 22ND FEBRUARY– 23RD FEBRUARY 2024

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 KSEF PLAGIARISM DECLARATION FORM

CATEGORY __________________________TITTLE ___________________________

REGION/COUNTY/ SUB-COUNTY/ZONE________________________________________

KSEF places specific emphasis on integrity and ethical behavior with regard to the preparation
of all written work to be submitted for science fairs as per its rules and regulations.
Although science personnel will provide you with information regarding reference techniques
as well as ways to avoid plagiarism, you also have a responsibility to fulfill in this regard. You are
guilty of plagiarism when you extract information from a book, article or web page without
acknowledging the source and pretend that it is your own work. In truth, you are stealing someone
else’s property. This doesn’t only apply to cases where you quote verbatim, but also when you
present someone else’s work in a somewhat amended format (paraphrase), or even when you use
someone else’s deliberation without the necessary acknowledgement. You are not allowed to use
another student’s previous work. You are furthermore not allowed to let anyone copy or use your
work with the intention of presenting it as his/her own.
Students who are guilty of plagiarism will be disqualified. In addition, the matter will be
referred to SRC for a decision to be made.

Declaration
1. I understand what plagiarism entails and am aware of the KSEF’s policy in this regard.
2. I declare that this project is my own, original work. Where someone else’s work
was used (whether from a printed source, the internet or any other source) due
acknowledgement was given and reference was made according to KSEF requirements.
3. I did not make use of another student’s previous work and submitted it as my own.
4. I did not allow and will not allow anyone to copy my work with the intention of presenting it
as his or her own work.
1. Name__________________ Signature _______________ Date__________

2. Name __________________ Signature ________________ Date__________

DECLARATION

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We

SAMUEL JOHN Adm no. 6918 Form four Signature……………………….

EMMANUEL NDOTO Adm no. 6853 Form four Signature ………………………

Declare that the work presented here is our own work and has not been presented in any other students’ science

and engineering fair before.

PROJECT ADVISOR: Mr. David Baraka Signature ……………………... Date …………….

PATRON: Mr. David Baraka. Signature …………………… Date ……………

PRINCIPAL: Mr. Isaac Kibe Signature ……………………. Date ……………

ABSTRACT.

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Breakfast is the first meal in a day at the morning. It is the essential meal as it gives people energy to do the
early morning activities when the body is still fresh.

The purpose of this project is to find out whether breakfast improves on school performance.

In this project we used a simple procedure; of giving specific students breakfast and testing their performance,

while others not given breakfast as a control experiment.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

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We are grateful to the Almighty God for giving us the strength, knowledge and understanding to complete this

project. His love and mercies have been more than sufficient to keep and sustain us.

Our profound gratitude goes to our Patrons, Mr David Baraka and Md Saida Abeid for their invaluable support

coming up with the survey form and assisting us in data analysis. We are also grateful for their patience, time

and guidance in seeing us to the completion of this research work.Our gratitude also goes to our Principal Mr

Kibe who allowed us to conduct research in the school through survey.

We also extend gratitude and appreciation to our fellow students who participated in the survey thereby making

our survey successful.

God Bless You All

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS
Plagiarism………………………………………………………………………………………….. 2
Declaration…………………………………………………………………………………………. 3
Abstract ……………………………………………………………………………………………. 4
Acknowledgment ………………………………………………………………………………….. 5
CHAPTER ONE
Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………………..7
Background information .......................................................................................................................7
Statement problem ……………………………………………………………………………….……7
Hypothesis …………………………………………………………………………………………….7
Significance…………………………………………………………………………………………….7
Limitations ……………………………………………………………………………………….……8
Assumptions ……………………………………………………………………………………………8
CHAPTER TWOLiterature review
Literature review......................................................................................................................................9
CHAPTER THREEMethodology
Apparatus …………………………………………………………………….……………………….10
procedure ...............................................................................................................................................10
Observations ……………………………………………………………………………………….….10
Variables………………………………………………………………………………………………12
CHAPTER FOUR: DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
Data analysis...……………………………………………………………………………..……...13
Data interpretation…………………………………………….………………………………..…13
Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………….13

CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSSION AND RECOMMENDATION

Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………………………….14
Recommendation...................................................................................................................................14
References ……………………………………………………………………………………….…….15

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CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

Many experts share the opinion that having breakfast every morning is beneficial to students’ performance in

school. Children who eat a healthy breakfast every morning were found to have better concentration and learn

better in class. They were also found to be more energetic as compared to students who did not have breakfast

regularly.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Breakfast is often described as the most important meal of the day. Overall, eating breakfast on a regular basis

linked to a range of beneficial health outcomes in children. Breakfast has been suggested to positively affect

learning in children in terms of behaviour, cognition and school performance.However most feeding

programmes conducted in Kwale have focused on lunch.it is with this respect that we can come with this project

to show that equally breakfast is important.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day yet most students in other areas go to school without taking

breakfast, especially day scholars. Most organizations fund lunch programs only. Therefore, we came up with

this project to show that breakfast is more important as most exams are done in the morning

HYPOTHESIS

Students who eat their breakfast in the morning will exhibit better memory retention.

SIGNIFICANCE
The importance of this project is to come with reliable data which will support our hypothesis and able

organizations funding lunch programs to extend to breakfast.

LIMITATIONS

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  The data can only depend on students of the same academic strength.

 Memory sometimes can be affected by other factors such as the emotional status of an individual

ASSUMPTION

Selection of participants is completely random.

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CHAPTER TWO: LITERAURE REVIEW

There are many studies showing benefits to cognition, especially memory, from early morning glucose drinks or

breakfast in elderly and young adults. although some studies found no benefits. The effect of glucose is

complex and varies by age of subject, difficulty of task, and level of glucose. It has also been shown that some

cognitive functions improve with either breakfast or glucose but breakfast benefits additional ones. There are

fewer studies in children. In an English study, investigators gave a glucose drink to 6- to 8-year-old children at

2:30 in the afternoon. The children were subsequently tested and showed improved reaction time and reduced

frustration when doing a difficult task. It may also be relevant to school feeding programs that studies in adults

have shown that lunch causes a decline of cognitive function and this needs to be explored in children.

No benefit of higher calories was found in one whereas benefits on a test of creativity (fluency) and voluntary

exercise were found in the other. Four laboratory studies have examined the effect of missing breakfast on

children’s cognition in the late morning using a similar crossover design, two in the United States one in

Jamaica, and one in Peru. The children were admitted to residential facilities where they could be observed for

one night on two occasions, one week apart. They were given a standard meal that evening and in the morning

were randomized to having breakfast or not. On the second admission the breakfast treatment was reversed.

They were given a set of cognitive tests at 11:00 a.m. In all four studies missing breakfast had some detrimental

effect on cognition although the effects were not identical. The two studies in Jamaica and Peru had groups of

nutritionally at-risk children and adequately nourished children. In both studies, the undernourished groups

were detrimentally affected in cognition the adequately nourished were not. Both stunted and wasted children

were affected in Jamaica. Interestingly, the adequately nourished groups actually did better in the no breakfast

state in one test in Jamaica and two in Peru.

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Of the studies reviewed, they found detrimental effects of missing breakfast on cognition. Therefore, seeks to

put more emphasis on Kenyan setting effect of breakfast on performance.

When looking for small differences in cognitive function, a crossover design, in which children are compared

with themselves with and without breakfast, is probably the most sensitive. It is also important to control for the

order of treatment and test under carefully standardized conditions. In our project we compared performance

between the students against themselves and against others.

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CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY

Materials

The materials required for this science fair project:

 24 students of high school age
 1 copy of a permission letter from the school administration to conduct survey in each form.
 Survey form

Procedure
 1student who did not take breakfast that day and 1 student who took breakfast that day. Were taken in a

room.

 50 random unique objects – orange, watch, calendar, pen, table, umbrella, banana, book, mirror etc.

Were placed on a table, they were displayed for 5 minutes then covered.

 20 minutes later we gave them a pen and a paper to write what they can recall.

 The exercise was done for 12 days using different kinds of students. Each day 2 participants.

OBSERVATION

The observation is that those students who had been given breakfast they were able to name moreof the objects

than those who were not given. The results were tabulated as follows.

Condition Effect of breakfast on number of objects that can be recalled

Days 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
No 1 1
12 6 9 11 8 10 8 7 9 11
breakfast 2 1
With 1 1 1
16 14 16 14 15 13 12 15 16
breakfast 2 7 5

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Variables
In our project the independent variable is whether the students have had breakfast or not. The dependent

variable is the ability of the students to recall a list of objects they had previously seen. This is determined by

asking them to write down the names of the objects that they had seen. The constants (control variables) are the

number of objects, the time given to look at the objects and the time given to write down the list of objects.

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CHAPTER FOUR: DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
Data analysis
The results obtained shows that, those who were taking breakfast are able to have a better memory. They were

able to remember most of the items displayed on the table. This hence makes our hypothesis to be true. That

those who take their breakfast are able to exhibit better memory retention.

EFFECT OF BREAKFAST ON MEMORY

18

16

14
NO. OF ITEMS REMEMBERED

12

10

0
day 1 day 2 day 3 day 4 day 5 day 6 day 7 day 8 day 9 day 10 day 11 day 12
TIME (DAYS)

Data interpretation
From the graph above it shows that the people who had breakfast were able to remember more items than those

who did not. The experiment or survey was done for 12 different days, with different participants

CONCLUSION
The hypothesis that students who eat their breakfast in the morning will have better memory retention, has been

proven to be true.

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CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSSION AND RECOMMENDATION

CONCLUSION
We are always trying to find ways to improve the performance of students in school. School plays a very

important role in our lives as this is where we learn many of the skills that are required for us to lead a

successful and meaningful life. In order to perform well in school, we need to lead a healthy lifestyle and have a

balanced diet, and certainly, we should remember to have our breakfast every day.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Given the data obtained from this project. We have saw that indeed breakfast is essential meal as it boosts the

memory retention. We recommend that county governments, national government and other philanthropic

organizations to consider giving breakfast to students. We also recommend further studies on other factors

which affect memory retention.

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References
• http://psychology.about.com/od/psychologyexperiments/a/breakfast-exper.htm

• http://www.knackonline.org/information/articles/study-of-eating-breakfast.php

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