For my experiment I chose to use a cotton wash cloth, a plastic sandwich baggie, the plastic bubble wrap from the thermometer and a piece a newspaper (Figure 2). Out of the materials I selected I predicted from best to worst as, the bubble wrap, sandwich bag, wash cloth then the newspaper.  I chose the bubble wrap and the wash cloth based on my text readings.  The bubble wrap since as stated to have the best insulation you need to have a material with many small spaces, such as “Styrofoam, glass wool and wool cloth” (Tilley, B., Enger, E. & Ross, F., 2008).  Instead of the wool cloth I had to use a cotton washcloth. As for the sandwich bag I thought I might be able to make a vacuum.    The newspaper I chose to thinking it was not going to be a great insulator since the paper would be difficult to get around the cup. Also, I figured the paper would get wet due to the condensation from the hot water, but the paper did not get wet. So I do believe I did not get a great seal around the cups edge.

The results of my experiment are found in Figure 1.  My results were not really accurate with I had predicted.  I was correct in assuming the bubble wrap would hold the heat the best. The second best insulator was the cotton washcloth. I would predict if it was wool it would have held the temperature almost exactly where it started.  Lastly, I found the sandwich bag and the newspaper where close to even with their temperatures as seen in figure 1. But after thinking about what I read about insulators, I did realize that my prediction of the sandwich bag was a little off.  There is nothing about plastic as being an insulator. Overall I was pleased with the results I discovered. 

Overall I was very pleased with my results of my experiment. If I was to perform the experiment again I think I might try using plastic wrap and creating a vacuum as well as many using aluminum foil. The plastic wrap could have created a small vacuum in the sense of no air escaping or entering.  I think the temperature would have remanded the same and would have been the best insulator between the two. But on the other hand the text book did not say anything about plastic being a good insulator. I wonder if anyone from our class did use plastic wrap.  I would have liked to see a dramatic drop in the temperature and I believe I could have found this using the aluminum foil.  Again like I stated above I think I would not be able to get a tight seal around the cup with aluminum foil. 

Material	Original Temperature	Ending Temperature
Wash Cloth	40 ° C	37 ° C
Sandwich Bag	40 ° C	34 ° C
Bubble Wrap	40 ° C	38 ° C
Newspaper	40 ° C	35 ° C

Figure 1

 

Figure 2

All four cups after the 30 minutes.

   





Reference

Tillery, B. W., Enger, E. D., & Ross, F. C. (2008). Integrated science (4th ed.). New York:
           

            McGraw-Hill.