Newton’s Law of Cooling Exploration

Lab Experiment

Divide into groups based on the equipment available

Materials

The following materials will be used:

• Styrofoam cups (with and without lids)
• Ceramic mugs (with and without lids)
• Insulated mugs (with and without lids)
• A source of hot water
• Temperature measuring devices: TI graphing calculators (TI-82, -83, -85, or -86) with TI CBLs or thermometers

Lab Activity

1)Obtain a container filled with hot water from your teacher.
2)Record the room temperature.
3)Record the temperature of the water over the remaining class time.
4)Be sure that the temperature probe or thermometer is in the water and not touching the side of the container.
5)If using a TI graphing calculator with a TI CBL, set the “INTERVAL BETWEEN READINGS (SECS)” to 120 and the “TOTAL NUMBER OF DATA POINTS” to whatever number is needed to allow the students to finish recording data to just prior to the end of the class period.
6)If using a thermometer, record data every two minutes.
7)When recording the temperature of the water, the first temperature point is time = 0.

Note:The TI-82 calculator will automatically shutoff if no keys are depressed.If this happens during data collection, simply press the ON button and only the ON button; no data will be lost during this process.

If using CBLs, the data is stored in the list files until needed.

The data will be recorded in an Excel spreadsheet with the following headings:

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