Solar Cooker Project
By: Lim Jiaqing, Ong Xueren, Giselle Kee and Ho Yu Han
Components of an Experimental Design
Hypothesis: The darker the colour of the paper used to wrap the container, the lesser time it will take for the water to heat up to 40 degrees Celcius.
Independent Variable: The colour of paper
Dependant Variable: The time taken for the water in the container to heat up to 35 degrees Celcius.
Constants: The type of container used for the experiment.
The initial temperature of the water in the container before the experiment.
The location where the experiment took place
The amount of water used in the container.
The experiments were both conducted in the mornings.
Control: Experiment with no changes except for the container which has no paper wrapped around it.
Number of trails: 3
Materials and Methods
Instructions on how to conduct the experiment:
Experiment Results
Analysis and Discussion
The experimental results do not reject our hypothesis.
Scientific Explanation of results
When an object appears as a certain colour when illuminated by white light. It means that it is reflecting light of that colour and absorbing all other colours of light. Hence, when more light is absorbed by the object, the more heat absorbed as light is energy.
A black object absorbs all wavelengths of light and reflects none.
A white object reflects all wavelengths of light thus it absorbs less heat unlike the black object.
Further explanation would be that heat and light are different types of energy. Light energy can be converted into heat energy.
A black object absorbs all wavelengths of light and converts them into heat so the object heats up.
A white object reflects all wavelengths of light so light enery is not converted into heat energy hence temperature of the object does not increase as much as compared to the black object.