Structures and Properties of Matter Portfolio

Question: How does the amount of a substance affect the rate at which temperature changes?
Hypothesis: If two different amounts of water are heated, then the smaller amount of water will heat
up faster because there will be less water to heat up.
Materials:
100 mL graduated cylinder
100 mL cold tap water
2 heat safe containers
Heat source
Thermometer
Oven mitts
Safety Procedures:
Adult supervision is required
Use oven mitts to handle hot objects
Do not reach over a hot burner
Procedures:
1. Pour 15 mL of cold tap water into one of the containers
2. Pour 85 mL of cold tap water into the other container
3. Make sure the temperature is the same in each container.
4. Heat both containers of water for 1 ½ minutes
5. Record the temperature of both containers of water
6. Repeat steps 1-5 until you have done 3 trials
Data Table:
15 mL container 85 mL container
Trial 1 40˚ C 63˚ C
Trial 2 59˚ C 85˚ C
Trial 3 46˚ C 77˚ C
Average 48˚ C 75˚ C

Analysis:
During trial 1, the small container of water was 40˚ and the large container was 63˚. In the second
trial, the temperatures raised for both containers going up to 59˚ for the small container and 85˚ for
the large container. In the final trial, the temperatures went down to 46˚ for the small container and
77˚ for the large container. The average was 48˚ C for the small container, and 75˚ for the large
container of water.
Conclusion: The data refuted the hypothesis. The hypothesis was that the smaller amount of water
will heat up faster. During the experiment, the larger amount of water actually ended up heating up
faster. However, there could have been mistakes that led to this data. Since the same containers
were used for all 3 trials, they still could have been hot and the water could have been immediately
heated just a little bit since the containers were still hot. Another mistake that could’ve led to
incorrect data was how long the containers sat before the thermometers were inserted to the
containers. Letting it sit longer before inserting the thermometer could lead to the water cooling, thus
giving inaccurate data. The last thing that could’ve led to false information was that the smaller
container had such a small amount of water that maybe the thermometer couldn’t reach the water
all the way. In conclusion, most likely smaller amounts of water heat up faster, the data collected in
this experiment was just inaccurate. If the experiment were redone, it would be a good idea to place
the thermometers into the cups immediately after they were done heating up, letting the containers
cool in between trials, and finally, using smaller containers or larger amounts of water so that the
thermometer could better reach the small amount of water.