The Best Thermos...

These two thermos were the best insulators. The best working thermos had a lid that went down into the water. The air in a thermos can help cool down the water faster. Without the air inside the thermos to circulate and cool off the water, the hot water can better maintain its temperature.

This thermos only lost 4 degrees Celsius. 

 This thermos lost a total of 3 degrees Celsius.

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.