Thermos Design Challenge

Making Ice Cream!

First, the students went down an assembly line pouring all of the ingredients into a bag. Next, the students put the ingredients inside a another bag of ice and rock salts.

Next, the students had to shake the ice cream for about 10 minutes for it to freeze. Luckily, the salt lowers the freezing point of the ice making it much colder, freezing the ice quicker.

 During lunch Mr. Rheinecker and Mrs. Hardin came down to the lab to make ice cream.

 We measured the temperature of the melted salty ice after the ice cream froze and it ended being  negative 12 degrees Celsius (10.5 degrees Fahrenheit).

We had many great toppings for our ice cream!

Ice & Salt

Today we put canned soda in two different coolers of ice. One cooler had rock salt added to the ice, and the other just had ice.

Testable Question: How does adding salt to ice affect the temperature of soda after 30 minutes?

We took out a soda from each cooler after 10, 20, and 30 minutes. Once the students measured the temperature of their soda, we recorded it on our table, and they could drink their soda.

Our results:

The soda in the salty ice was colder after 30 minutes!

Insulator Test

We poured hot water into 4 different kinds of cups to see which would be the best insulator. We learned that an insulator is something that doesn't allow the heat to flow through it easily. We had a plastic cup, and paper cup, a coffee cup, and a styrofoam cup. We put an aluminum foil lid on each one.

Thermal Energy - Shaking Sand

In this lab, we wanted to see if adding kinetic energy to sand by shaking it would increase the temperature of the sand.

The students shook sand for 1 minute intervals for a total of 5 minutes. After each minute, they quickly opened the container and measured the temperature to see if it was affected compared to the starting temperature.

Measuring the temperature

shaking sand

measuring temperature

Shaking sand!!!

Measuring temperature and sand shaker in the background.

Making Biodegradable Plastic

We made biodegradable plastic before we left for Christmas break. We talked about non renewable resources and the harm that regular plastic can do to our environment. Then we made biodegradable plastic. See the directions below.

After you mix the ingredients in a baggie, and place it in the microwave for 25 seconds the students molded their plastic into a shape and left it out to dry and harden.

Mystery Compounds

Today the students identified compounds given to them based on the color they burn when put over an alchol burner. The students wore goggles, and held the compounds with tweezers over the flame. Here is the information they were given...

The colors listed to the right of each compound is the color they should burn. Given unknown compounds 1, 2, 3, and 4, the students had to identify each compound.

Class Pictures of Element Projects!

Unfortunately, I didn't think to do this until after first hour. Below are pictures of hours 3, 4, 6, and 7. The projects were amazing!

 3rd Hour

 4th Hour

6th Hour

7th Hour