Activity One

                                                                        

Label the cups, fill them with one cup of water each, then freeze.


Controlled variables-
amount of water in the cups (one cup)
container waters in
freezing method

Question 1- Does cold water or hot water freeze faster?


Hypothesis- I think that cold water will freeze quicker because the change in temperature the water needs to go through is a lot smaller than that of hot water. The molecules of the cold water are moving a lot slower and need less time to become a solid than the much quicker moving molecules of the hot water.
























Materials needed?
a timer of any kind
a measuring cup
6 paper or plastic cups
a freezer
labels
hot and cold water

Trial #	Trial 1	Trial 2	Trail 3	Average time
Cold Water	1:21	1:19	1:22	1:20:30
Hot Water	2:04	2:01	1:55	2:00

Conclusion- The cold water froze much quicker than the hot water.






Theory- Since the molecules of the water have to be slowed down a lot more in the hot water than the cold water it just takes more time.  That is why there is a 40 second difference in.


Question 2- Does hot water or cold water boil faster?


hypothesis- since the molecules are already moving faster in the hot water then in the cold water they wont have to work as hard to become a gas and boil.  Therefor the hot water will boil more quickly than the cold.

what you need-

a source of constant flame

pot to heat the water in

hot and cold water

a timer

controlled variables
how hot the flame is
size of the pot you use
amount of water








                                                                                   Make sure the heat stays constant for all tests!

Trial #	Test 1	Test 2	Test 3	Average
Cold water	4:11	4:37	4:17	4:23
Hot water	3:22	3:07	3:31	3:16

Conclusion- hot water boils faster than cold water

Theory- the difference is more than one minute in time between hot and cold water.  This is due because the temperature has to change so much less in hot water to boil than cold water does. The molecules in hot water work a lot less to get farther apart and become a gas.

Question 3- which freezes faster salt water or regular water?

hypothesis- I think that the regular water will freeze faster because when salt it in water it makes the water molecules attach to each other more slowly and overall move more slowly.

materials needed-

6 plastic or paper cups

water

salt

a teaspoon

a measuring cup

Controlled Variables-

the amount of water in the cups

using the same freezer

amount of salt in each cup

Conclusion- salt water freezes slower than regular water does

Trial #	Test 1	Test 2	Test 3	Average
Regular water	1:52	2:02	2:11	2:02
Salt water	2:12	2:04	2:18	2:11

Theory- this happens because the element salt makes waters molecules move slower than normal.  Do to this fact they aren't able to heat up or cool down as fast and turn into either or gas or in this case a liquid.

Saltwater molecule

a video of water in the stages of its life- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=essJjFBJIss

The scientific method-

Question- this is the big picture and big question you are trying to have answered at the end of your experiment, it is your overall goal.  The question in this experiment was about how water could be altered to slow down or speed up the time it took to change forms.

Background research- it is important to someone to be familiar with the materials and what your going to be working with not only so you have knowledge but also for safety reasons.  Before I did this experiment I just watched a video on the stages of matter and also looked at pictures of the water molecule and salt molecules. 

Conduct a hypothesis- it is important to do this so you have a guess on what you think is going to happen.  This makes you motivated to find an answer and find out if your right.  In my case I had to make a hypothesis for each of the three questions asked, and it was important because I was able to already be thinking about what was going to happen.

Experiment- this is actually doing the experiment, and it is the most important part of the scientific method because this answers your question.  It either proves your hypothesis right or disproves it.  In my experiment it is important because doing them is the only way to gather data and come to a conclusion.

Analyze data- this is when you look at what you found from the experiment and use it to decide what it means.  In my experiment it helped me figure out what exactly salt, temperature and heat do to water.

Make a conclusion- This is finalizing your experiment.  the last part is to make something out of the data you got and wrap up your results.  For me I just had to look at the average time and make it clear on what happened and what results were for each experiment. 

Repeatability of the experiment- you can't just relay on one trial to ensure that you come up with a correct result.  In this case I did the trials 3 times and averaged them out.  This makes sure that nothing freaky happened to change your results and make you get the wrong one.  Usually the results wont all be the same so averaging them out makes it easier to decipher your results.

How this experiment connects to real life?

Thinking about water in each stage of its life may seem pretty boring, well to be honest it kind of is.  But to be honest it does it does have a lot to do with everyday life.  I know never to put salt in my water if I'm going to make pasta because the water will just take longer to boil. 

Also the measurements are important because I did a few different amounts of water when I boiled and froze it and it almost took half the time when I used a smaller amount of water.  If you think about it it makes sense though because it take a lot less to heat a small room than a big one.  So when Im looking for a new apartment I will keep in mind that if I don't want to pay a ton to heat it be okay will living in a ten by ten room.

Knowing salt makes water freeze a lot slower it makes sense that they use it on roads and my driveway. They really don't use it in Menominee though lest be honest.  They rarely use sand...and we all know how much that does.