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I see!
I love your thought process with your types of damage. That's a really smart idea. What you may want to think about is a way to keep the external environment consistent. Do you want it to consistently stay under light? Should you keep them all in a cardboard box as if it has been shipped? I'm not sure how in-depth you all want to take this project.
One thing that I would do is take consistent pictures of each potato. A picture every 2 days would be good enough to display the amount of damage each potato has taken over the time of the experiment.
Something to think about as well would be the size of the damage-site. I would make the damage large enough for the potential type of rot to develop in the amount of time the experiment is taking place. Small amounts of damage may simply callus-over or scab-over and show no real results. You may want to decide if you are going to consistently damage the entire potato for each set, not just a small cut or one good bruise brought on by tossing it on the floor. In science, more trials make for better results, so it is good that you all are each taking on a set. Make sure you each damage the potato consistently as well. If you come up with a certain method of damaging each potato (i.e. dropping it from the height of the lab bench 10 times to create bruising...) make sure each person does it the same way. If you don't, it becomes inconsistent testing and bias immediately enters the picture.
I can't think of anything else for now! I'll post again if I come up with anything.
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The mentor did a really good job of helping the students and providing examples that could get them thinking but not too much information that they don't need to think.
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