Monday, January 10, 2011

Reflection On Labs

Cooling Race Lab
Guiding Question: How does energy affect matter? How does the shape of ice affect the way it melts? Which will cause a greater temperature change in the water: crushed or cubed ice?
Hypothesis: My thoughts are that the crushed ice melts first because the amounts of ice are smaller .
Materials:
• 2 plastic cups
• 2 thermometers
• Water
• 2 different colored markers
• Ice cubes
• 2 small plastic bags
• Balance and masses
• Spoon
• Crushed ice
• Timer
• Graph paper
Procedure:
1. Half fill two plastic cups with water. Put a thermometer in each cup. Record the water temperature under Start in your chart.
2. Put two ice cubes in a plastic bag and set them on one pan of a balance. Place a second bag on the other pan. Use a spoon to add crushed ice to this bag until the pans balance (or until you have the same mass in each bag).
3. Add the ice cubes to one cup and the crushed ice to the other cup.
4. At three-minute intervals, measure the temperature of the water in each cup. Record each measurement in your chart. Continue for 15 minutes.
5. Make a line graph that shows how the temperature of the ice-water mixtures changed over time. Use a different color for each line on your graph.
Record and Analyze:
Water Temperature (degrees C)
Start 3 minutes 6 minutes 9 minutes 12 minutes 15 minutes
Water + Ice Cubes 18.5 9.5 6.5 5.5 5.2 6
Water + Crushed Ice 18.5 7.5 5.5 5 5 5

Data Analysis: 1) Describe how the ice in each cup changed. 2) In which cup did the ice change faster? 3) In which cup did the water cool more quickly? 4) What difference between the ice cubes and the crushed ice might explain why the water in one cup cooled faster?
1. Well, the ice got smaller and smaller each check.
2. The crushed ice changed faster.
3. The crushed ice did but also heated up quicker.
4. Because the crushed ice was small and had the area around it melting.
Conclusion: We go back to the guiding question: How does energy affect matter? Was your hypothesis correct? Why or why not? After doing this experiment, you have evidence that can help you to explain this question. Use this evidence and data to write your conclusion .
Yes I was correct, the crushed ice melted faster, but not recommended because it heated up faster also.
Further Inquiry: Was your data reliable? Any errors? Further tests you could do or inquiry questions that you have ?
I could of seen the effects with salt, but then the water would have been horrible .
______________________________

1 comment:

  1. Hi Alex,
    The rubric isn't formatted right to be used in a blog post. You should probably erase this post unless you would like to just have the lab on here.
    Mrs. M.

    ReplyDelete