In Science Class . . . Week of 10/11

This week, the students performed an experiment that compared how water and soil respond to the energy from the sun. We took cups of soil and water outside, and recorded temperatures of the materials in the sun every few minutes for 15 minutes, then moved them to the shade and recorded temperatures every few minutes there. This experiment will help students when we begin our study of weather and climate in a few weeks.  On Thursday, the students created line graphs of their data, and we discussed independent vs. dependent variables. Key questions:

• What did you discover about how soil and water heat? (Soil heats up and cools down much more quickly, while water is a "heat sink," meaning that it takes an ton of energy to warm it up.)
• What was the dependent variable in the experiment? (Temperature, because it depends on the time the material was in the sun. )
• What variables did we control? (Amount of materials used, time in the sun/shade, type of thermometer used, etc)