Science Project on “Changing Temperatures”, Project Experiment Topics on Environmental Science for Class 8, 9, 10 and 12 Students.
Changing Temperatures
Materials Required:
- Four empty 2-litre plastic bottles
- A 2-litre cola bottle
- Five thermometers
- Strings
- Five sticks
- Table
- Sunny window
- Red, blue and yellow food colouring
- Pencil and paper
- Clock
An ice-skating ring was developed in the area. A big ring was formed out of asphalt and it was filled with water. In winter, the temperature dropped well below freezing point.
However, the water in the ring never froze. Maybe the black colour of asphalt had something to do with it.
The planet is warmed by the sun. Dark coloured things hold the sun’s heat and warm them. Light coloured objects reflect sunlight and do not warm them enough.
To know which colours hold sunlight the best, let us carry out the following experiment. In four 2-litre plastic soda bottles, fill some water. In one of them add red colouring, one with blue and one with yellow.
Leave one bottle plain with water. Remember that the colours should be dark enough. In case, you want to check out black colour also, use a cola bottle for the experiment. Leave all the bottles in the sun for an hour. Now cut some strings of 5 inches, tie each string to one end of a thermometer and another end to a stick.
Make sure that the attachment is so made that the bulb of the thermometer can go deep down into the water. After an hour has passed, make sure that all the thermometers are giving the same reading. Now lower all the thermometers into the bottles and wait for 5 minutes. Retrieve the thermometers, check the temperature and note them down. Compare all the readings and find out which bottle collected most heat energy.
Controlling Heat
As explained above, some materials are better conductors of heat than others. All metals are good conductors of heat, though some may be better than others. Liquids and gases are not good conductors of heat.
For example, copper and aluminium can conduct heat three times better than steel or iron and more than 9,000 times better than air. Likewise copper and aluminium can conduct heat over 950 times better than glass. Those materials which do not conduct heat very well are known as poor conductors or insulators.
Air is a good insulator. When you wear warm clothes, a layer of air gets trapped between the clothes and your body.
Body heat warms this air and it insulates you from the cold because the warm clothes don’t allow it to escape.