For the experiment this week, I decided to select the following easily assessable materials to act as covers for my glasses: saran wrap, aluminum foil, copy paper, and a piece of wool. I believe that of these materials, the saran wrap and the aluminum foil will be the best insulators. Despite this, I must also note my suspicions that all of the materials have some amount of insulating properties and as such the amount of heat loss from the different materials may be insignificant.   As I began to collect the items needed to complete this lab, I ran into one MAJOR problem, I did not have any mugs. In my house, no one drinks hot beverages; as a result, there were no mugs available. I asked several of my neighbors, only to receive similar responses, so I substituted the mugs for identical glasses. Next, I selected 5 identical glasses, four for the experiment and one to act as the control. To ensure that each cup received water at a constant temperature, a hot plate was used to warm up the water to 140° Fahrenheit. I poured 6 ounces of water in each cup, and I wrapped the top of each cup in one of the cover materials, the control glass was left without any cover. After thirty minutes, I came back, and I measured the temperature of all of the glasses again, and the results were quite interesting. In my original hypothesis, I suggested that the saran wrap and the aluminum foil would provide the best results. I also suggested that the temperature difference found using the different materials might be insignificant. The results from my lab showed that all the materials that I used provided the same amount of insulating properties. In the original temperature reading all of the glasses received water that was 140°F, at the conclusion of the thirty minutes, all of the glass had a temperature of 90° F. The only glass, which had a different temperature, was the control glass; in this glass, the water had a temperature of 80°F.  In the end all of the materials I selected seemed to be great insulators.

Materials	No cover	Plastic	Aluminum	Wool	Paper
Original Temp.	140°F	140°F	140°F	140°F	140°F
Final Temp.	80°F	90°F	90°F	90°F	90°F

How might you set up this or a similar experiment for students in your classroom? How could you make this experiment more fun, interesting, or engaging for your students? How might you design this experiment so that it is relevant to students’ lives?

In my classroom, I would set this experiment up like it was a cooking contest.  Students would be placed in groups and then they select one representative who would come up to the front who selected the materials they would test.  The selection process would be timed and the students would also be timed as they completed this exploration.  To make this experiment more fun and engaging I would take a student poll on materials and objects they would like to test.  I believe allowing students to select the materials they would like to test is one way that I could design the experiment so that it could show relevance in my student’s lives.