Scientific Process
Is the following an observation, inference, or prediction: I think that the black coffee cup was warmest because the color black absorbs more electromagnetic waves.
Inference because inference explain what is happening/has happened.
The ____________________ is a type of prediction made at the beginning of science experiments that explains what you think will happen.
Hypothesis
The type of heat transfer that occurs through electromagnetic waves is called ___________________
Radiation
Describe how particle movement changes when energy is added to a substance.
As energy is added to a substance and transferred to particles by new particles bumping into them, the particles begin to move faster and spread out.
If you are watching a science demo and write down,"I saw a bright orange flame that was about 3 inches tall" are you writing down an observation, inference, or prediction. Explain your thinking/reasoning.
Observation. Observations simply describe what one observes with her/his senses.
What is the variable called in an experiment that a scientist purposefully changes?
Manipulated or Independent Variable
What type of heat transfer occurs when objects are physically touching?
Conduction
What state of matter has a definite volume, but changes to fit the shape of its container?
A liquid
At the end of an experiment after you have collected your evidence in the form of data and observations, you should make a ____________ to answer the Scientific Question that started out your experiment.
Claim
When one makes an inference, he/she bases it on O_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ and P _ _ _ _ K _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _.
Observations and Prior Knowledge
Describe what causes liquids to rise when they heat up.
Convection currents cause the heated up liquid to rise as the particles start moving faster and the hot liquid decreases in density as there are fewer particles in the same volume of space. Less dense things rise above more dense things.
Which will contain more particles, a glass jar full of the gas water vapor, or a glass jar the same size, but full of liquid water? Explain why.
The water will have more particles as particles are closer together in liquids than gases. In gases, the particles are spread out more and moving very fast.
If an experiment has only one manipulated variable, meaning that only one thing is being changed by the scientist when collecting data, then this is called a ______________ experiment.
Controlled experiment. In controlled experiments, everything about the experimental process should stay the same except for the one thing the scientist is changing.
A prediction is very similar to an inference and in Mr. Weis's class they both are in the form of "I think...because..." What is one way they are different?
Both predictions and inferences use observations and prior knowledge, but predictions explain what will happen next, while inferences explain what has happened already or is happening currently.
Think about when we put a flame underneath the water balloon in class. Name two types of heat transfer that were taking place and describe where they were taking place in the demo.
Conduction as the rubber of the balloon transferred heat to the water by touching it and convection as the water inside heated up causing it to rise and mix with the rest of the water.
Bob says an item can have low temperature, but high thermal energy. Explain how this is possible.
Temperature is the average speed of particles and items with low temperature have a low average speed. Thermal energy is the total amount of energy of all the particles in a substance added together. Even though cold objects have particles that aren't moving very fast and don't have much energy, if the cold object is very large, then when the energy is all added together, for example a large block of ice, the item can have both a low temperature and high thermal energy.
Define the term Kinetic Energy. Then explain how a desk in Mr. Weis's class can have kinetic energy.
Kinetic Energy is the energy of motion. While a desk would have lots of kinetic energy if it was thrown, hopefully that would never happen. The desk has kinetic energy if it is sitting still as the particles in a solid are still moving and vibrating just a little bit.
An experiment was conducted where different types of liquids were frozen and then the time was measured for each liquid to melt on a piece of metal. What is the manipulated (also sometimes called independent) variable and why is it called the manipulated variable in this case?
The different types of liquid is the manipulated variable because all other parts of the experiment are controlled and stay the same during testing except for the different types of liquid.
Different types of liquid are put into a balloon with a flame under it, and the time it takes each balloon to pop is measured. What is the responding (also called dependent) variable in this experiment and why is this the responding variable.
The responding variable is the time it takes each balloon to pop. This is because the responding variable is what changes as a result of the manipulated variable, or the changes the scientist is intentionally making in the experiment. The scientist is intentionally changing the different liquids and then measuring the times to pop as responding variable.
In a demo in the beginning of the year, a small container with a balloon on top was placed in cold water and hot water. Explain what happened to that balloon and why it happened.
As the balloon was transferred to hot water, it began to inflate. Then, when put back in cold water, it deflated. This occurred because when the heat transferred to the water and gas, the particles began moving faster, spreading out and taking up more space. When the heat was taken away, the particles moved slower, got closer together and took up less space.
Describe what happens at a particle scale when an ice cube is placed into hot water.
The hot water particles start bumping into the slower moving particles in the ice cube. This transfers energy and causes the ice particles to move faster, increasing the temperature and causing it to change from a solid to a liquid.
What state of matter can convection currents not occur in. Explain why.
Convection can only occur in fluids because it requires the substance to move and mix together. Solids have particles packed together tightly so they can not mix around and move.