Waves Lab

I recently finished my new Lab. It was my most complicated ever.

Waves in Hot and Cold Water

I.  GUIDING QUESTION: Does a wave in water travel faster/further in hot water, cold water or room temperature?

II.HYPOTHESIS: I predict that the temperature of the water in which the wave will be moving is irrelevant to the wave’s speed and distance of wave.

III.  Exploration (PLAN & DO A TEST):
         (Materials)

1. Large plastic rectangular pan
2. Marker
3. Metronome (digital or analog)
4. Camera (optional)
5. Ruler
6. Thermometer

         (Procedure) Lists the steps required to replicate the
                               experiment

1. Place a large pan on a table, and fill it with 1.5 inch of water that is about 20 degrees Celsius.
2. Next to the side of the pan, place a ruler or meter stick.
3. Directly above the pan, place a camera that will accurately record the wavelength so you can view the frames and count the waves to find the frequency later on a computer.
4. Choose a marker that you will use to create the wave. Place it bottom-down in the section of the pan where you will be creating the wave. Measure 1 inch above the top of the marker. Find some way to mark that spot, because you will be moving the marker one inch up and down to create the wave.
5. Using a digital or analog metronome, first set the beat to 60 bpm, and tap the marker up and down one inch, each tap on the metronome’s beats, all while the waves are recorded on the camera. Repeat the same test at 120 bpm, or any other speed you desire.
6. Also repeat these test with 5 degrees Celsius water, and 80 degrees Celsius water.

IV.  RECORD & ANALYZE

           A.  Data Tables:
                      

Run:	Beats Per Minute	Water Temperature
1	90	18
2	90	18
3	120	18
4	120	18
5	180	18
6	120	80
7	130	80
8	60	9
9	90	9
10	120	9

For some reason, my camera didn’t record these runs correctly, and so unfortunately don’t have the video for these runs.

          This is a comparison made from frames from the videos of each test.

C.  Analysis of Data:  I had planned to analyze my recordings of the waves by looking at the individual frames on a computer, and measure the wavelength. However, this didn’t work I the way I hoped it would have. The main reason it didn’t work was that the waves in the water were the same color as the water itself, so it was hard to see the waves in the individual frames. I was able to make some observations based on the video though.

IV.  Concept Acquisition (CONCLUSION): My guiding question was this: “Does a wave in water travel faster/further in hot water, cold water or room temperature?”. My data wasn’t nearly as reliable as I thought it would be, but I can tell from the data that I have that the temperature of the water has little to no effect on how fast/far a wave will travel. In other words, my hypothesis was correct.

V.  Concept Application (FURTHER INQUIRY): I tried really hard in this lab to produce accurate data, but despite my efforts my data wasn’t as good as I hoped. One of the main causes that I couldn’t get perfectly accurate data from my video frames of the waves was that my waves weren’t very visible in the frames. I think this is a difficult problem to solve, but I might have been able to solve it by putting food coloring into the water, to make the waves more visible. Another reason my data wasn’t as good I hoped it would be was that my camera didn’t record the trials with the cold water. To solve this problem, I should have used a better camera, and possibly even more than one camera.


UPDATE:
While I was making this lab, Mr. McKenzie (our schools technology director) came and filmed me explaining how my lab worked. Here's the video he made: