Week #4 Blog for Exploring the Physical World

HOT OR NOT?

This week we had to design an experiment using different household materials that would act as insulators for mugs of hot water. I chose to use aluminum foil, Press n' Seal wrap, a cotton pot holder, and a napkin. The results were quite interesting.  I predicted that the aluminum foil would hold the most heat and act as the best insulator and that proved to be correct. What was suprising for me, was that the Press n' Seal wrap and the Napkin acted the same in terms of being insulators. Both had the same ending temperature at the end of thirty minutes.
Which brings me to the question:

What, specifically, would you like students to learn from this experiment? Did you achieve this goal when you engaged in the experiment?

I would like my students to learn more about insulators and the specific materials they are using in the experiment. I gained a great deal of insight about heat transfer and insulators through conducting this experiment. In terms of insulators, I learned the proverbial rule “don’t judge a book by its cover. I based my predictions on what I knew of the materials when cooking and not neccessarily because of what they are actually made of.  Thinking ahead to having my students conduct this experiment, I would encourage them to research the consistency of the materials they have selected before conducting the experiment this way they have more background knowledge about which material may make the best insulator based on makeup alone. I feel as though I could achieve this goal if I were to do the experiment again.