Testing Insulators

Friday, January 16th, 2009

Testing Insulators.

Teacher brought lots of ice to school today so we decided to test which materials we have at school would keep the ice coldest for longest.We found padded fabric, newspaper, plastic, tinfoil and a piece of carpet. We wanted to keep the test fair so teacher cut the materials into squares of exactly the same size. We put an ice cube on to the middle of each piece of material. All the icecubes were exactly the same size and shape.
We wrapped the ice cubes in the pieces of material, and tied them with an elastic band.We left the test for about 45 minutes (we would like to have left the test for longer but it was very near home time so we couldn't) then opened up the materials and compared the sizes of the icecubes. Here are our results:The smallest piece of ice was in the plastic, most of that ice cube had turned to water (melted).
Next smallest was the ice cube in the newspaper.
Third smallest was the ice in the tinfoil, where we also could see some water.
The largest ice cubes were the ones wrapped in padded fabric, and in carpet so we think these materials make the best insulators.
We would like to repeat this test some day when we have more time, and can wait until the ice cubes fully melt.