Student Instructions – Do Not Write on This Sheet
Bubble Gum Density
Have you ever been in trouble in school for chewing gum? Have you ever taken your bubble
gum out and played with it? (If you said no, you don’t have a very good memory!) In this lab,
you get to have your bubble gum during class, and “play” with it too!
Here’s What to Do:
A- Form a group of 3 or 4 people.
B- Get a worksheet for each person in your group
C- Go get a piece of bubble gum (with wrapper) for each student.
D- Identify the location in the room of a nearby triple beam balance and graduated cylinder.
E- Identify a nearby clock with a second hand or a timing device
F- Fill in the blanks on your worksheet to design your own mini-experiment that answers the question,
“What are the effects of chewing on bubble gum density?
G- Designate one person from your group to check your experimental design with the teacher before
you proceed. Do not start with your experiment without your teacher’s approval.
H- Get going with your experiment, but first, here are some things to remember:
Remember to record data on your data table for each person in your group - this is like
repeating the test to verify results.
Remember to test only one thing at a time, and keep all of the other variables constant.
Remember to label your data chart and your graph
Bubble Gum Density
Student Name ____________________
Period _______
Score______/40
With your group, design your own experiment to answer this question…
Question: What are the effects of chewing on bubble gum density?
Hypothesis: (1 pt) If
the bubble gum is chewed for 5 minutes, then the density of the chewed
gum will __________________ because _______________________________________.
Materials : one
piece of Hubba Bubba bubble gum for each person, one gum wrapper, a triple
beam balance, a graduated cylinder, a clock, a calculator, water, a ruler, a test subject
Procedure: (10 pts)
Step 1 Gather materials
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
Step 5
Step 6
Step 7
Step 8
Step 9
Step 10
Step 11
Step 12
Step 13
Independent Variable 1 pt (The thing we are testing)
___________________________
Dependent Variable 1 pt(The outcome that we are measuring) _____________________________________
Constants 2 pts pts (Stay the same for all trials) __________________________________________
Comparison group: 1 pt Our group will compare the density of gum
________________________
and the density of gum ___________________________________________
Test
Mass
Volume
Density
Mass
Volume
Density
Subject
Before
Before
Before
After
After
After
Names
Chewing
Chewing
Chewing
Chewing
Chewing
Chewing
1
2
3
4
Average Density before Chewing ____________
Average Density After Chewing____________ (15 pts)
Sum up your results with one sentence: 1 pt __________________________________________________
Conclusion: (Put these all together in paragraph format) 5 pts
A: restate the question
B: restate the hypothesis
C. tell what happened
D. was the hypothesis supported?
Analysis:
(Look at your data and answer the following questions)
A. Did the volume of your gum change significantly? Did the mass of your gum change significantly?
B. How did these changes affect the density?
E. Do you have a guess at what caused your observed changes? Explain.