From all of our investigation ideas, we started with changing just one feature of our cups to see the impact, if any, that change would make. Here are the ten cups we tested:
We shared each data set with the class to begin analyzing what we found. Check out our data!
We made sure that we were comparing our data to our comparison cups, and that comparison cup's data could help us figure out if a feature made a difference in keeping a liquid cold. Our classes came up with the following analysis:
Despite all our findings, we also discussed that there were some potential snafus, or mistakes in our data collection. Students asked to do the investigations again to get more reliable data, so we will. We furthered defined our controls, so we will keep the lights off in our classroom, put the probe part of the digital thermometer in the entire way into the water, and wait until the thermometer completely stops going down instead of pushing the hold button too fast!
- Adding a layer kept the liquid colder when compared to a same material cup with less layers.
- A lid made a slight difference, meaning it kept the liquid colder.
- The straw didn't seem to have an impact.
- Metal cups always outperformed their plastic equivalents.
Despite all our findings, we also discussed that there were some potential snafus, or mistakes in our data collection. Students asked to do the investigations again to get more reliable data, so we will. We furthered defined our controls, so we will keep the lights off in our classroom, put the probe part of the digital thermometer in the entire way into the water, and wait until the thermometer completely stops going down instead of pushing the hold button too fast!