Factors affecting heat loss from the body

Factors affecting the rate of heat loss from the body I am being asked to carry out a practical investigation which considers the factors affecting heat loss from the body. The aim of this investigation is to look at the effect of size on temperature loss in warm-blooded animals. I am going to discover and learn more about the relationship between objects and the rate at which they loose heat. I will be using beakers in correspondence to animals during this investigation. I will also be applying my knowledge of homeostasis in correlation to what I discover. Homeostasis is the property of either an open system or a closed system, especially a living organism that regulates its internal environment so as to maintain a stable, constant condition. This need for constancy was recognised in the nineteenth century by Claude Bernard. He concluded: 'La fixité du milieu interieur est la condition de la vie libre.'1 Which means: 'The constancy of the internal environment is the condition of the free life.' The temperature of environments inhabited by living organisms ranges from 90°C in hot spring to -40°C in the Arctic. Most organisms, however, live in the narrow range of temperature 10-30°C. To survive, most animals need to exert some control over their body temperature. This regulation of body temperature is called thermoregulation. Thermoregulation is the ability of an

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: Science
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Factors Affecting Heat Loss.

Science Investigation Factors Affecting Heat Loss Introduction: There are three main types of heat transfer, Convection, conduction and radiation. We are asked to do and experiment heat loss using one of the heat transfer. Our group chosen to do radiation because it would be a straight forward experiment and I understood the task of the experiment. We will be using Aluminium foil, both the shiny and matt sides, white colour paper, black colour paper and corrugated cardboard. Radiation: The hotter the object is the more heat energy it radiates. Different surfaces affect radiation. It depends an awful lot on surface colour and texture. Dark matt materials absorb the radiation falling on them. Much more strongly than bright glossy surfaces such as gloss white or silver. They also emit heat radiation much more to. Silvered surfaces reflect almost all heat radiation falling on them. Dark matt materials are poor reflectors and light surfaces are poor absorbers. Conduction: Conduction of heat occurs mainly in solids. Conduction of the heat is the process where vibrating particles pass on the extra vibration and energy to the neighbouring particles. This process continues through out the solids, causing a rising temperature at the other side. Non-metals such as plastic, wood and rubber etc are very good insulators. All metals are good conductors due to their free electrons.

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: Science
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An Investigation Into The Factors Affecting Loss Of Heat From Alcohols.

An Investigation Into The Factors Affecting Loss Of Heat From Alcohols Planning My aim for this experiment is to see the energy produced of different alcohols. Variables involved: For this experiment I would expect to have 3 different variables, Independent, Dependent, and fixed variables, which all helps me to plan and explain the experiment thoroughly. The Independent variable (things you change), the thing that I will be changing in this experiment into the combustion of a range of alcohols, would be five different alcohols, Methanol, Ethanol, Propanol, Butanol, and Hexanol, which will help me to investigate combustion of different alcohols. I will measure these individual alcohols by mass which will be measured in grams, I'll be making two readings of each alcohol before the experiment and after, which would tell me the mass lost and how much heat in produces in 5 minutes. Dependent Variable (things that you measure) the things that I'll be measuring would be the temperature (oC) increase by every minute of each different alcohol being lit to heat the water in the copper calumeter, and the mass before and after the experiment of alcohols. Fixed Variables (Things that you keep the same) the things that I have chosen to keep the same in each individual experiment to keep it a fair test, is to keep the same amount of water being heated, the same copper calumeter (as it

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: Science
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Determine which materials make the best insulators and determine the factors affecting heat loss from a container.

* Aim: * To determine which materials make the best insulators. * To determine the factors affecting heat loss from a container. * Fair Test: I must make sure that the tests are fair by being very accurate when measuring the temperatures of the beakers with boiling water in them, so that I end up with results that will indicate which material is the best insulator. In this investigation it is important that I use containers made of the same size, and same shape, with the same volume of water, at the same temperature. This is called 'controlling the variables', which will help me carry out the investigation as accurate as possible. * Theory: The four main types of heat transfer are the following: - Convection involves the movement of molecules and so it can only occur in fluids (liquids and gases), where the molecules can move within the body of the fluid. Convection currents are examples of floating and sinking. When part of a liquid or gas is made warmer than its surroundings it expands and rises because it is less dense. The air next to the icebox in a fridge is cooled and so it contracts. The cold air sinks because it is denser than the warm air below it. This movement of air is called a convection current. A dye in the form of a crystal or an ice cube can be used to see convection currents in water. - Conduction is the main way in which energy transfers

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: Science
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Heat loss from animals

Saira Hamid 1CM BIOLOGY COURSEWORK Heat loss from animals Investigation: To investigate heat loss from animals. Aim: To find out how body size affects the rate of heat loss. Background: The way heat is transferred from the animal to its surroundings can be done in three ways, convection, conduction and radiation. Convection: hot gases expand and become less dense, therefore rise and are replaced by cooler gases this is called the cooling affect. This happens in animals with less body coverings. Where the environmental temperature has a greater difference to that of the animal. Conduction: is when molecules transfer heat vibrating and passing on the vibration. This occurs when the animal is in direct contact with a surface, so the vibration molecules are passed from the animals' feet to the surface it is in contact with. Radiation: there are no molecules are involved in this type of heat transfer, so therefore the heat is transferred by waves. Some animals such as the polar bear, which lives in arctic conditions, has had to adapt in its environment, because it has to decrease the amount of heat loss and instead conserve the heat. Just like the polar bear other animals such as the camel have had to adapt to live in the desert conditions so therefore it needs to increase the amount of heat loss. Both these animals have had to adapt to the environment that they live

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The effect of insulating materials on heat loss from the body

The effect of insulating materials on heat loss from the body Richard Smith 5? Introduction In this experiment I will be testing six different materials, felt, cotton wool, bubble wrap, polystyrene, wool and cotton. The other variables, for example, the number of layers, the amount of water in the flask, and the size of the flask, will be fixed to enable a fair test. I will use 200 cm3 of water in the flask, which will be inside a beaker full of the insulating material. Prediction I think that the polystyrene will be the best insulator, because after looking at all the materials under a microscope, I found that polystyrene had the smallest air spaces. This means that the air in those spaces will take the least time to heat up and therefore less heat is lost in the heating. I think that the bubble wrap will be the worst insulator, because it has large air spaces, which will take longer to heat up. The order of best --> worst may look like this: polystyrene, felt, wool, cotton wool, cotton, bubble wrap. I think that the graph will look like this: - The heat is lost at first through conduction to the layers of insulation. That is why in my predicted graph I think there will be quite a rapid fall in temperature initially and then it will slow down. When the temperature drop starts to slow down that is when the insulating material is heated to roughly the same temperature as

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: Science
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What factors affect heat loss?

What factors affect heat loss? PROBLEM I have been asked to investigate the link between colour and heat loss. Does the silver or the black cup lose its heat faster? HYPOTHESIS I think that the silver cup will retain the heat for a longer period of time than the black cup, I think this because the black cup will absorb the heat, where as the silver cup will reflect the heat back into the cup causing the black cup to cool down faster than the silver cup. BACKGROUND INFORMATION CONVECTION - the hot water in both cups will have convection current in them. The hot water will rise and sink as the water begins to cool. This means the heat energy is being passed on to the metal cup over most of its inner surface. CONDUCTION - the metal cups will get hotter as a result of the heat energy inside the cup. The water will pass on this heat energy due to the fact that metal is a good conductor of heat. The heat energy will be conducted throughout the metal cup to the outer surface where it will be transferred to the air around the cup as radiation. RADIATION - hot objects (i.e. the metal cup) emit mainly INFRARED radiation, and the hotter the object the more radiation it will emit. How much radiation the object emits will depend on the surface. The black cup had a dark matt surface and therefore will emit more radiation. This will mean that the black cup will lose more infrared

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: Science
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Rate of heat loss

Planning (a) Aim: To investigate the factors which affect the rate of heat loss from a body. Theory: In this experiment we will study how several factors affect the rate of heat loss by carrying out investigations to test different hypotheses made concerning size, insulating layers, speed of evaporation of water, surrounding medium, etc. Several observations and claims can be explained using theoretical knowledge about the nature of a body and the rate of heat lost from it. . Short and fat people tend to lose heat more slowly than tall and thin people of the same body weight because their surface area to volume ratio is much smaller. As the rate of heat loss is directly proportional to the surface area volume ratio this means that even though the body weight is constant, this rate is higher in tall thin people than in short fat ones. 2. Several thin layers of clothing (insulating layer) keep you warmer than one thick layer as they contain a lot of air spaces in between which help to trap heat and hence reduce heat loss. As these tiny pockets containing air are absent in a single layer, it has poorer insulating action. Hence it can be concluded that several thin layers of clothing are more efficient at reducing heat loss than one thick layer. 3. Evaporation of water (for instance in perspiration) from the body surface speeds up the rate of cooling. This is because

  • Word count: 2201
  • Level: International Baccalaureate
  • Subject: Biology
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What factors affect heat loss?

What factors affect heat loss? PROBLEM I have been asked to investigate the link between colour and heat loss. Does the silver or the black cup lose its heat faster? HYPOTHESIS I think that the black cup will lose heat faster then the silver cup. BACKGROUND INFORMATION CONVECTION The hot water in both cups will have convection current in them. The hot water will rise and sink as the water begins to cool. This means the heat energy is being passed on to the metal cup over most of its inner surface. CONDUCTION The metal cups will get hotter as a result of the heat energy inside the cup. The water will pass on this heat energy due to the fact that metal is a good conductor of heat. The heat energy will be conducted throughout the metal cup to the outer surface where it will be transferred to the air around the cup as radiation. RADIATION Hot objects (i.e. the metal cup) emit mainly Infrared radiation, and the hotter the object the more radiation it will emit. How much radiation the object emits will depend on the surface. The black cup had a dark matt surface and therefore will emit more radiation. This will mean that the black cup will lose more infrared radiation than the silver cup (which is a poor emitter of infra-red radiation) and as a result it will lose its heat quicker than the silver cup over the same amount of time. EQUIPMENT * Thermometer * Metal

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: Science
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Investigate the nature of heat loss in the human body.

Heat Loss Aim The aim of the investigation is to investigate the nature of heat loss in the human body. This will be achieved by looking at the theory of Homeostasis, followed by conducting an experiment in relation to heat loss. * To determine the relationship between heat loss and body size. * To see if there is any correlation between heat loss, body size and insulation. The Nature Of Heat Loss Many processes both physical and biological are affected by body temperature. Enzymes work rapidly at optimum temperature (37 C) if the temperature alters they may become denatured. Cell membranes become more fragile as temperature rises. Diffusion rates increase by higher temperatures and decrease by lower temperatures. Liquids such as blood become more viscous as the temperature of the body falls. Most animals control their body temperature. Some are Ectotherms (outside heat), meaning they control their body temperature by their behaviour - a lizard gets heat from basking in the sun but when it is too hot it will seek shade to cool down. Homeostasis is the regulation of body temperature. Endotherm is the term used to describe this characteristic of mammals and birds. Humans maintain a relatively high and constant body temperature that enables active lives, even when their surrounding environment temperature is low. The body produces more or less heat depending on the rates

  • Word count: 3751
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: Science
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