My first assignment, one I feel was a learning experience that I enjoyed and an assignment I did well, was an animated …show more content…
Haag had us do a lab experiment. In this lab experiment, we filled a glass bottle with hot water, then used different types of material, such as wool or cotton, to insulate the hot water. After a set amount of time, we measured the temperature change and concluded by deciding what was the best insulator out of what we had tested. In total we were required to test three different insulators and have one test of a glass bottle without anything insulating it. Mr. Haag suggested that we use different socks, which our group did: in addition to the non-insulated glass bottle, we used a wool sock, a wool sock soaked in vinegar, and a banana peel. I feel that we followed directions and did lab procedures correctly, however, our data values were extremely abnormal. The least temperature change, as we expected, was of the wool sock, which was normal. However, the second best insulated glass bottle out of the four we tested (including the test with no material) was, for some strange reason, the glass bottle with no insulation around it. The worst insulator was the wool sock soaked in vinegar. I concluded that we found these results as a result of the banana peel and the vinegar being at a lower temperature than the water in the glass bottle, so that the temperature of the water we measured dropped more than it should have.
Obviously, our experiment was not too successful, so we could have made sure our different types of material were all at room temperature. It wasn't necessary for the starting temperatures of the water be the same for the experiment to work, but to have them at relatively the same temperatures at the beginning of the tests could create a smaller chance of the water having irregular temperature