Kelly Sutton Physics (1) March 3, 2013 Ice Melting Lab Question: Will ice melt faster when

it is in the melted water, or the water is drained out after it melts? Hypothesis: My best guess is that the water remaining in it will make the ice melt faster because it will have a larger surface area, and therefore a larger area for the sun to hit, and heat. Materials: Two cups, two equal amounts of ice, something to poke holes in the bottom of one of the cups, the sun (preferably) Procedure: Step 1: Poke holes in the bottom of one of the cups Step 2: Put an equal amount of ice in each cup, and mark the level inside the cup of where the ice is to start. Step 3: Put the two cups out in the sun and wait Step 4: Every five minutes check the ice, and see how much is melted, and mark the cup if you can Step 5: After 40 minutes dump the water out of the cup that did not have holes in it, and see which cup has more ice left over.

Data: Data for the closed bottom cup

Time passed Amount moved from start

5 min .5cm

10min .9cm

15min 1.4cm

20min 2cm

25min 2.3cm

30min 2.7cm

35min 3.2cm

40min 3.6cm

Data for the cup with the holes in the bottom

Time passed Amount moved from start

5 min .6cm

10min 1.1cm

15min 1.5cm

20min 2cm

25min 2.5cm

30min 2.9cm

35min 3.4cm

40min 4cm

Analysis: The data shows that the cup with the holes in the bottom made the ice a bit faster. We conducted this experiment twice, once inside using a a lighter, where there wasnt much difference between the two cups. We also conducted this experiment outside with a little bit of sun, and thats where we got more conclusive results. I think that the one with the melted ice draining away worked better because the sun was able to be focused on what needed to be melted, as apposed to the water and the ice in the non draining cup. The results in this were pretty conclusive, not so much by the actual measurements, which could be off a bit, but by watching them melt side by side, I could tell the sun a better focus on the drained ice. Conclusion: The results of the experiment showed that my hypothesis was incorrect, because the extra water sitting around caused the sun to be unable to focus on the ice that needed to be melted. I think that the water in the cup helped the ice melt, but not as much as draining the water. After learning this we decided we would poke holes in the bottom of our container for the

actual experiment. There were some environmental errors in this experiment because we never had proper sun to correctly test our question. There was human error in the direction that we poked the holes ( from the bottom to the inside) which didnt create an easy flow for the water to get out, but when we make our actual competition item we will poke from the inside out. Another human error was we didnt mark the cups every 5 minutes, the timing was little rough, but that doesnt effect the conclusiveness of the results because what matters most is the final part of the final ice difference at the end of the experiment.