Earth Science
Name____________________
Date ____________________
Period __________
Investigating Conduction
BACKGROUND:
When two objects or two regions within an environment have different temperatures, heat
energy may move from one region (object) to the other by a process of direct interaction or
touching. This heating process is called conduction. For example, if your hand is warm and
you hold hands with someone whose hand is cold, eventually both hands will become about the
same temperature. Overall, there are three ways heat energy can be transferred: radiation,
conduction, and convection. Today’s lab will investigate conduction.
PROCEDURE:
1. At your lab station you need the following materials:
a. 4 Styrofoam containers
b. 4 Styrofoam lids
c. 4 thermometers
d. 1 metal conductor (U-shaped metal bar, copper wire, bent fork, aluminum foil etc.)
2. There will be 2 separate lab setups, a control setup, and an experimentation setup. Note: the
metal conductor is ONLY used in the experimentation setup.
3. Put the thermometers through the little slashes in the Styrofoam lids.
4. Fill two containers with cold water.
5. Fill the other two containers with boiling water.
6. Make two hot-cold setups. Place the hot and cold containers side by side.
7. Put the lids with the thermometers in them onto the containers.
8. Wait 1 minute and record the temperature of each container. THIS WILL BE YOUR
INTIAL TEMPERATURE for both lab setups!
9. Record these temperatures into each of your data tables.
10. Remove a set of lids (one hot container, one cold container) with the thermometers still in
them and quickly work the metal conductor (the U-shaped bar or a conductor approved by
teacher) into the big slashes in the Styrofoam covers.
11. Put the lids back onto the containers with the conductor in place. This is your
experimentation setup. The other setup WITHOUT the conductor is the control setup.
11. Record the temperature of each container every minute for 30 minutes. Record the
temperatures into your data tables.
13. When finished, graph your data onto graph paper. X-axis = time (minutes); Y-axis =
temperature (Celsius).
14. Follow graphing rules.
metal conductor
HOT WATER
COLD WATER
HOT WATER
EXPERIMENTATION
SETUP
COLD WATER
CONTROL
SETUP
DATA TABLE (EXPERIMENTATION SETUP):
Initial
Time
(minutes) temp.
Hot (C)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
Cold (C)
Time
(minutes)
Hot (C)
Cold (C)
10
Time
(minutes)
Hot (C)
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
Cold (C)
DATA TABLE (CONTROL SETUP):
Initial
Time
(minutes) temp.
Hot (C)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
Cold (C)
Time
(minutes)
Hot (C)
Cold (C)
Time
(minutes)
Hot (C)
Cold (C)
QUESTIONS:
What is a conductor? ___________________________________________________________
What is an insulator? ___________________________________________________________
How are conductors and insulators different? ________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
What object(s) acted as conductor for this lab? __________________________________
What object(s) acted as an insulator for this lab? _____________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
In the control setup, explain what happened to the water temperature in each container:
Cold water container:
_____________________________________________________________________________
Hot water container:
_____________________________________________________________________________
In the experimentation setup, explain what happened to the water temperature in each
container:
Cold water container:
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
Hot water container:
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
What was the rate of temperature change for the control hot water container? DON’T
FORGET YOUR UNITS! (Hint: Total temperature change divided by total minutes)
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
What was the rate of temperature change for the experimentation hot water container? DON’T
FORGETYOUR UNITS! (Hint: Total temperature change divided by total minutes)
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
What was the rate of temperature change for the control cold water container? DON’T
FORGET YOUR UNITS! (Hint: Total temperature change divided by total minutes)
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
What was the rate of temperature change for the experimentation cold water container?
DON’T FORGET YOUR UNITS! (Hint: Total temperature change divided by total minutes)
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
If you continued recording the temperature for 24 hours, what do you think would eventually
happen to the water temperature in each container within the control setup?
_____________________________________________________________________________
If you continued recording the temperature for 24 hours, what do you think would eventually
happen to the water temperature in each container within the experimentation setup?
_____________________________________________________________________________
What specific metal (element) always acts as an excellent conductor? Hint: it is the color bronze
and has 6 letters.
_____________________________________________________________________________