Assignment #1
Tea Time – An Experiment in Heat
When thinking about the scientific method in general as we should when
faced with any scientific question, and specifically dealing with heat: Why do
we heat up water before making tea?
Please complete the following experiment:
Control: 1 cup of water – 3 glasses; 1 tsp of loose leaf tea per glass
Variable: the temperature of the water
1.) Place one cup of water in the refrigerator for 10 minutes.
2.) Place the second cup of water in a pan and bring it to a boil.
3.) Leave the third cup of water to sit at room temperature.
4.) Add 1 teaspoon of loose leaf tea to each glass. (Just open a tea bag for
each one)
5.) Observe
6) Use your phone or another camera to take a picture of your setup to
include in your lab report.
7) Make initial observations and include in lab report, also leave the cups
overnight and make final observations. Discuss the differences in your lab
report in the evaluation and conclusion section.
8) Complete a lab report.
9) Send lab report to me via email. elaine.wade@hallco.org or
greg.martin@hallco.org
*Teacher notes: Students should observe that molecules are moving much
faster in the hotter cup, a little bit in the room temperature cup and almost not
at all in the cold cup. The tea leaves in the hot water move around the cup
quickly and then settle on the bottom of the cup. The majority of the tea
leaves in the cold water stay at the top of the cup. If you can, leave the cups
to sit overnight and watch how much darker the hotter cup becomes.
Assignment #2
Eggs-traordinary Learning About Heat
Continuing with the heat topic, please complete the following lab after finishing
assignment #1. In this lab, you will be exploring conduction, convection, and
radiation.
1) Before beginning the lab, use the internet to research the three terms
given above. Write a suitable definition for each term in your own
words before beginning the lab.
You will look at conduction, convection and radiation by cooking three eggs in
three different ways. The first egg will be fried, which represents conduction –
as the egg directly touches the pan, which directly touches the fire or electric
burner. The second egg will be baked in the oven, which represents
convection – as neither the egg nor the pan ever touches the fire, but the egg
will be cooked by hot air moving around the oven. The third egg will be
scrambled and cooked quickly in the microwave, which represents radiation.
*Take a picture of your results to include in your lab report.
Next, you will look at convection through water and boiled eggs. You will also
explore whether the longer something comes in contact with heat, the more it
changes. Put five eggs into boiling water (make sure it is a rolling boil) and
take out one egg every 2.5 minutes. Place the eggs in cool water when you
take them out of the boiling water. (Make sure you have the cool water in 5
different containers so you know which egg is which) Open the eggs into
separate containers and photograph your results. *Note the picture below is
an example only. Your eggs will come out of the water every 2.5 minutes
instead of every minute as pictured below.
 Write up two separate lab reports for assignment #2, one for
the conduction, convection, and radiation experiment and
one for the boiled eggs. Send in each lab report to me via
email. elaine.wade@hallco.org or greg.martin@hallco.org