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Science Experiment Idea


It is no secret in my class that I like to drink diet coke from a bottle versus a can (mainly because I fear things falling into the open can). I also like my diet coke SUPER COLD. The other day I grabbed one from Walmart and thought to myself, "I wonder if there is a difference in temperature between soda in a can or in a bottle?" (and do they loose temperature at the same rate).

I thought I could tie this question in nicely with our unit on light we just started. We have been exploring properties of light (it contains energy) and what happens when it hits objects. Using information we have studied students would be introduced to the question and then they would have to make a hypothesis.

I thought it would be a nice easy classroom experiment. All you have to do is take a cold 12 oz bottle of diet coke and a cold 12 oz can of diet coke and then have students record the temperature of each every 5 minutes for about twenty minutes and discuss the results and what part light might have played in the experiment.
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Comments

Frank Noschese said…
Be careful. You're also comparing 2 different materials (aluminum vs. plastic). So you have no real way of determining whether any difference is due to light or the thermal properties of the container. Perhaps using running comparisons using clear and opaque plastic instead?

My guess is that any difference is due to plastic vs. metal. I bet the plastic bottle stays colder longer.
December 12, 2010 at 9:14 PM
Eve Heaton said…
I like the idea of comparing clear and opaque plastics. Funny I thought that the aluminum can would stay colder longer. Still haven't run the test in my classrom. We really need to get digital thermometers. My 9/10 year olds have such a hard time reading the thermometers we have!
December 13, 2010 at 6:35 AM
Brandy said…
I just wanted to say that I have really gotten some good ideas about notebooking and started to use these ideas in my special ed chemistry class. I have enjoyed it so much that we are starting this semester to use this in General Chemistry.

Thanks for the blog and keep it up!
January 5, 2011 at 5:05 PM
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