Martin Murphy Middle School eighth grader Emily Pember, 13, placed second in the Biological Science and Engineering Category for her experiment, “Can People Taste The Differences Between Bottled, Filtered and Tap Water?” at the Synopsys Science County Science Fair.
Pember tested about 80 people, each of whom blind-tasted three samples of water—bottled, filtered and tap— before selecting their favorite.
The results were that the subjects tested chose all three about evenly, suggesting there is no real taste preference over tap water for bottled or filtered water.
