Name:___________________________________________ Period: __________ Date: ___________________ Scientific Method: Toilet Paper Lab PROBLEM STATEMENT: Suppose you are a scientist working for a consumer-testing agency, which evaluates the effectiveness of various consumer products. You have been asked to evaluate three brands of toilet paper to determine which brand has the greatest strength when wet. RESEARCH QUESTION: Which brand of toilet paper will hold the most pennies when wet? BACKGROUND INFORMATION: Examine each brand of tissue. Think of things such as the papers’ texture (rough, smooth, scratchy) thickness, etc. Make observations using your 5 senses! Angel Soft (blue dot):________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ White Cloud (red dot):________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ Great Value (green dot):______________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ HYPOTHESIS (Claim): Make a prediction about the outcome of the experiment: ___________________toilet paper will be the strongest because _____________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ Identify the variables in the experiment: Independent Variable: (the one thing your are changing each time) ___________________________________ Dependent Variable: (what are you counting or measuring) _________________________________________ Control: (what are you keeping the same each time) _______________________________________________ MATERIALS: 3 squares of Angel Soft toilet paper with blue dots on them 3 squares of White Cloud toilet paper with red dots on them 3 squares of Great Value toilet paper with green dots on them 1 plastic beaker 1 rubber band 20 pennies 1 dropper Water (in a plastic cup) PROCEDURE: (Write down each step of the procedure that you and your partner followed. You may not need each blank. If you repeat steps, you may say “repeat steps…”.) 1. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 2. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 3. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 4. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 5. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 6. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 7. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 8. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 9. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 10. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 11. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 12. ____________________________________________________________________________________ DATA AND RESULTS Table 1: Number of Pennies Applied Before Breaking Toilet paper Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3 Mean Other Observations: (qualitative data) Angel Soft: Blue Dot White Cloud: Red Dot Great Value: Green Dot GRAPH: CONCLUSION: (complete sentences) 1. Summarize your results – which toilet paper was the strongest? __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ 2. What information (evidence) convinced you that this toilet paper was the strongest? Look at your graph. __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ 3. Make an inference - why do you think that the toilet paper that was the strongest outperformed the others? __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ 4. Restate your hypothesis – was it correct or not? __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ 5. If you were to perform this experiment again, what would you change in your procedure? Why would you make those changes? __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________