The Speed of Ice Melting

In our science class, we were asked to design our own science experiment. We chose to test how different platforms affect the speed of ice melting. We chose 3 different platforms to run the experiment on; a piece of cardboard, someone’s hand, and someone’s neck. After forming an observation question, researching, and creating a hypothesis, we were ready to run the experiment. After the experiment, we created a lab design sheet to display our test.

­Lab Design Sheet

Name of Experiment: Speed of Ice Melting Experiment.                             

Question to be answered: Which platform, Ryan’s neck, Michael’s hand or a piece of cardboard will melt ice the fastest?

Prior Knowledge: We knew that human skin is warmer than cardboard.

Hypothesis: If we melt ice on Ryan's neck, it will melt faster than it would on cardboard or Michael’s hand.

Rationale: This will happen because body heat is warmer than cardboard and will melt the ice faster.

Independent Variable: The platform that melted the ice.

Dependent Variable: The time it took the ice to melt on the platform.

Constants: The room temperature and the size of the ice cube.                  

Equipment: The equipment that we used consisted of a stopwatch, cardboard, Ryan’s neck, Michael’s hand, and ice cubes.

Procedure:

1) We gathered all materials needed. They are ice which we put into a beaker, cardboard, Ryan’s neck and Michael’s hand.

2)  We then placed 2 pieces of ice on each platform at the same time and timed it preiscely.

3) We waited monitoring the ice platforms.

4) We then recorded the time when each of the platforms ice melted.

ANALYSIS: At the end of our experiment the data showed that Ryan's neck melted the fastest with a time of 13.46 next was Michael’s hand which melted the ice in 18.32 minutes then came the cardboard which took 44.53 minutes.

CONCLUSION: Our experiment turned out the way we predicted in our hypothesis. The ice was proven to melt the fastest on Ryan’s neck, the second fastest on Michael’s hand, and the slowest on cardboard.