It's Too Darn Hot!

For my experiment with heat insulators, I used thick ceramic mugs which could hold about two cups of liquid, a tea kettle and water, long rubber bands, foil, a car advertisement which was made from thick shiny paper, Saran Wrap, a tea clothe, and a big leaf off of a house plant, and the thermometer given to us by Walden. I chose the mugs because they were what was available which did not have wide brims. Other mugs would have let heat out faster because of more of an open area. I chose the foil because I was curious to see how much it transferred heat. So often it is used in cooking so I wanted to test it out. I used Saran wrap because it is also used quite a bit in cooking and I do not really think of it as being an insulator as much as a protector or eliminator of contaminants. I wanted to see how useful it could be at holding heat and I thought that the ability to hold in steam would work in its favor. I chose the tea clothe because they are used to wrap around bread when it is fresh out of the oven. I didn’t think that it could work too well and I wanted to see if I was right. I chose the house plant leaf because it seemed odd enough to really spice up the experiment. In South America banana leaves are used for cooking things in. I wanted to see how well this would work. I didn’t really expect too much out of it, but at the same time, the rubbery and water tight nature of the leaf caused me to think that its performance might shine out.
The results of my experiment was that it was a flop. In my efforts to protect the heat of the water and do everything for insulation’s sake, in thirty minutes I had four cups with water still high above the point of my thermometer being able to measure it. So high above, in fact, that there was no way to compare any of the scenarios. So, I tried it again, this time I waited until the water was right at 120 degrees (the highest mark on the thermometer) before I put the “lids” on. In the second experiment, I checked each one at 20 minutes and 30 minutes. Here are their times respectively: foil, 106 degrees and 99 degrees Fahrenheit; tea towel, 105 and 97 degrees Fahrenheit; slick paper, 104 and 98 degrees Fahrenheit; Saran Wrap, 108 and 99 degrees Fahrenheit; and lastly house plant leaf, 110 and 100 degrees Fahrenheit. All of the experiments were close, but the Saran Wrap and plant leaf were the highest. This causes me to believe that it is the water proof things that do the best in this case but I think that the steam would be the reason for that.

Answering Questions:
“What other items might you like to test, other than water? Why might these items cool faster or stay hot longer?” I think that something like hot dogs might be a good idea because the heat will be less gaseous and more solid/conduction related. I think that a leaf might still work, but other materials might shine out more with a different movement of heat which is not water related. I would love to test out bread and potatoes. Potatoes should have a much longer cooling time. They seem to hold heat well. However, I would love to test something like eggs and try to find a good way to keep them warm without overcooking them.

How might you set up this or a similar experiment for students in your classroom? How could you make this experiment more fun, interesting, or engaging for your students? How might you design this experiment so that it is relevant to students’ lives? I think that I would use a prompt to make it more interesting for my students. I would ask them to think of something during the week that they eat and really enjoy which is hard to keep nice and warm. I would ask them to also bring in things that they already use at home to keep things warm. After that, we can go from there at testing materials out to see which works better and also test different items to see what works best for them. I would let the students know that if we find anything conclusive that we are going to prepare our information to share it with others and help others to share in our new understandings. Part of what we put up will be an area where people can respond to what we posted with their thoughts, comments, etc.