Saira Velasquez Aileen Alfaro 4th per.

What direction should solar panels face?

Problem: What direction should solar panels face and why? Hypothesis: If we locate solar panels to the east then on the thermometer will show higher temperature which means more sunlight is located. Materials: Magnetic Compass Empty tissue box Marker Pen and paper 4 outdoor/indoor thermometers Sunny day Sand (or other form of weight) Tape plastic wrap Procedure: 1. Fill your empty tissue box with sand. 2. Tape each of the four thermometers to the tissue box, one to each side, with all the bottoms facing the same direction.

3. Tape a layer of plastic wrap over each thermometer using a square of equal size for each of them. What do you think the Plastic Wrap is for?

4. Find a spot outside that you know will get sunlight all day.

5. Try to wake up before the sun rises so that you can place your tissue box in this spot. Use your compass to find north, and rotate one side of your tissue box to face that direction. Label this side with an N, and make sure to all

the other sides with their corresponding directions on the compass. Do you think the sun rises directly to the east and sets directly in the west? Why or why not? 6. After the sun begins to rise, wait half an hour and look at the temperature for each thermometer. Record the time for each thermometer in a chart like this: 7. Do this after every hour over the course of the day, until late in the afternoon (or until sunset, if you can wait that long!).

8. Collect your tissue box and make a graph of temperatures using the data you collected.Whats the difference between the highest and lowest temperature thermometers? Is this surprising to you? Are the temperatures the same at dawn and sunset? Observations: We have observed that placing the thermometer in different directions we would find out which one had a higher temperature.Which it means that the higher the temperature the more sunlight the solar panels are receiving. Websites for research:

WWW.Education.com WWW.Google.com WWW.ScienceBob.com