Diagram
Prediction
I predict that there will be a wide range of results for the different coatings. I think that the coatings with the most air bubbles will be the best insulators for heat because the bubbles will trap the hot air and circulates inside them so no more heat can get through or not as much heat can get through. That’s why I think that the Foam will be the best insulator. I also think that the Tin foil coating will also be a good insulator. I have also concluded that our fair test ideas will help us a lot to get fair results.
A Fair Test
To make my experiment fair I am going to change/edit a few factors in the test. Firstly I will make sure the temperatures are the same before I start timing. I am only going to test two coatings at a time, so it will be easier for me to concentrate, then I wont make any mistakes. Also I am going to make sure there is the same amount of hot water in each cup. I will also make sure that there is just one wrap round of coating on each one. I will also make sure that the cups are the same size as well.
Results Tables
Experiment 1
Experiment 2
Experiment 3
Conclusion
During the experiment I found out that the foam was the best insulator out of all that I tested. I found out that no wrapping was the worst insulator. So my prediction was correct; I predicted that foam would be the best insulator because that had more air pockets and the more air pockets there are the more the hot air is trapped.
The best insulator was Foam, then tin foil, lint and bubble, then newspaper and then no insulator. I have done three graphs and I can see that there are a few patterns that I can describe. One of them is that there is repetitive results that foam is the best insulator of heat, I can tell this because the graphs show that foam has the highest ending temperature and on experiment three, foam is the best insulator all the way through the experiment.
I think that because the best thermal insulators are those that have the most tiniest air spaces because a thin layer of air will stop the flow of heat about 15,000 times better than a good metallic conductor of the same thickness.
Evaluation
In my results and graphs I don’t see that there are any results that do not fit the pattern that they are in. Although I think that tin foil does not really fit the pattern that I explained because after my research I would of thought that tin foil would have been one of the worst insulators of heat but its one of the best. I can’t think of why this maybe but I think if I repeated my experiment a few more times then maybe I would get the results that I might of expected.
I think that I repeated my experiment enough to get the results I wanted and I think that my results are reliable because of how many experiments I took and the patterns that keep on repeating. I also think that the experiment was accurate because I used all the fair test objectives that I had planned and I thought that they were very effective for me to get my correct results. I cannot think of any improvements because I did all that was possible.
