TITLE: Plan and Design

SCENARIO: Iyanna is a civil engineer and is currently designing a building for the

Government of Grenada. She wa ould like the building to be energy efficient in reducing heat

and theorizes that a white building would be cooler than a dull black building. Plan and

design an experiment to determine if this is true.

HYPOTHESIS: The colour of an object is directly related to the amount of heat absorbed

AIM: To determine if the colour of a building is directly related to the amount of heat

absorbed

APPARATUS: two plastic soda bottles of the same size, black and white paint, paintbrush,

Blu Tack, two thermometers, notebook, pen

DIAGRAM:

DIAGRAM SHOWING SET UP OF THE EXPERIMENT

METHOD/PROCEDURE:

1. Paint the outside of one bottle white and the outside of the another bottle black. Set aside

to dry.

2. Take the dry bottles and fill with room temperature water.

3. Take the bottle caps and make a hole in each cap, big enough to insert a thermometer.

4. Place the thermometer in each cap so that when it is in the bottle, it is immersed in the

water. Use Blu Tack to create a seal around the thermometer and to keep it in place.

5. Record the initial temperatures in the bottles before placing in the sunlight.

6. Place the bottles in a sunny location, such as inside near a window in direct sunlight.

7. Record the temperatures from both bottles every thirty minutes for two hours.

8. Compare the readings obtained from both bottles.

VARIABLES:

Controlled – amount of water

Manipulated – colour of plastic bottles

Responding – the rise in temperature of the water within both bottles

EXPECTED RESULTS: The results expected to be obtained are the varying temperatures in

each bottle; a higher temperature in the black plastic bottle than in the white plastic bottle.

This is due to the black paint absorbing most of the radiant energy from the sun, whereas the

white paint will reflect most of the heat away.

PRECAUTION: To reduce the likelihood of errors affecting the experiment’s results, the

same amount of water should be placed in each plastic bottle.

SOURCE OF ERROR:

A source of error that may occur is inaccurate readings of the thermometer by the researcher.