The Effect of Temperature on Viscosity

Student: Mia Monteiro
Table: 9
Experimentation location: Home
Regulated Research (Form 1c): No
Project continuation (Form 7): No

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Abstract:

Bibliography/Citations:

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Additional Project Information

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Research paper:
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Project files:
Project files
 

Research Plan:

Research Question:

If I change the temperature of corn syrup, how does it affect its viscosity? 

 

Procedure

  1. Gather your materials.
  2. Open the bottle of corn syrup, measure 50 milliliters of corn syrup, and pour into a container.
  3. Put the container in the freezer for 30 minutes.
  4. Measure 100 milliliters of corn syrup and pour it into a pot.
  5. Place the pot on the stove with medium-low heat.
  6. Heat the corn syrup in the pot until it reaches 140℉
  7. Take the temperature throughout the heating with the thermometer, and make sure to measure the temperature of the liquid and not the pot.
  8. Take the pan off the heat and turn off the stove.
  9. Pour 50 milliliters of the hot corn syrup into a container.
  10. Let it sit on the counter for 30 seconds while you prepare your funnel over the graduated cylinder, and your timer.
  11. Take the temperature of your heated corn syrup and record it in the data table.
  12. Pour the heated corn syrup through the funnel and time it, using your timer, until 40 milliliters pass through. (You can tell by looking at the graduated cylinder)
  13. Record results in your data table
  14. Clean the funnel, graduated cylinder, and thermometer and dry completely
  15. Empty the corn syrup from the graduated cylinder, into the bowl
  16. After the thirty minutes in the freezer are complete, take the temperature of the corn syrup
  17. Keep the corn syrup in the freezer for thirty minutes at a time, taking the temperature in between, until it reaches 45℉
  18. Repeat steps 9-14 with room temperature corn syrup (fill the bowl with warm water and put the graduated cylinder inside)
  19. Repeat steps 9-14 with the cooled corn syrup (Fill the bowl with warm water and put the graduated cylinder inside)
  20. Repeat steps 2-19 nine times
  21. Record all observations and data in the data table

 

Risk and Safety:

The risk of my project is using a gas stove and heating up corn syrup. This can cause burns if not used carefully and properly. To stay safe I used protective gloves and had adult supervision while conducting my experiment.

Questions and Answers

 

1. What was the major objective of your project and what was your plan to achieve it? 

The major objective of my project was to learn more about the relationship between temperature and viscosity and write a research plan that can effectively communicate the plan for my experiment.

    a. Was that goal the result of any specific situation, experience, or problem you encountered?  

That goal was the result of a specific situation I encountered; I saw something online that made me think about temperature with liquids. That made me think about how different things are directly related to temperature, like viscosity.

    b. Were you trying to solve a problem, answer a question, or test a hypothesis?

I was trying to test my hypothesis which was that temperature does affect viscosity, in corn syrup.

2. What were the major tasks you had to perform in order to complete your project?

    a. For teams, describe what each member worked on.

The major tasks I had to perform were writing my research plan, conducting the experiment, which consisted of me freezing and heating corn syrup, pouring it through a funnel, cleaning the graduated cylinder, etc., analyzing my data, and writing the report.

3. What is new or novel about your project?

Something new about my project, to me, is that everything is connected in some way. When I was conducting my experiment, I realized that there are so many parts of science that are connected. For example, temperature directly affects viscosity. 

    a. Is there some aspect of your project's objective, or how you achieved it that you haven't done before?

Something that I did differently was the way I conducted my experiment. I used to do multiple trials at the same time but this time I focused on each trial individually. 

    b. Is your project's objective, or the way you implemented it, different from anything you have seen?

The way I implemented my objective is not different from what I have seen because I have seen projects conduct experiments that give them the exact data needed.

    c. If you believe your work to be unique in some way, what research have you done to confirm that it is?

I haven’t heard of anyone measuring viscosity with a funnel to find the time it takes for the liquid to pass through before.

4. What was the most challenging part of completing your project?

The most challenging part of completing my project was the amount of time it took. Some of the trials took over 45 minutes and I was watching it the entire time.

   a. What problems did you encounter, and how did you overcome them?

One problem I encountered was that I didn’t realize how long it would take for corn syrup to boil, and I took my eyes off of it for one second and when I looked back it was mainly evaporated and bubbling a lot. I overcame this by redoing that trial and making sure to always keep my eyes on the corn syrup to make sure I don’t overheat it.

   b. What did you learn from overcoming these problems?

From overcoming this problem, I learned that it can be really hard to stay focused on something but it is important to give certain things your utmost attention.

5. If you were going to do this project again, are there any things you would do differently the next time?

I would use the same method because it was easy to follow and I found data that was easy to analyze and interpret. I would probably shorten the number of trials because it took a lot of time and it took a lot of effort to clean the graduated cylinder after every time it was used.

6. Did working on this project give you any ideas for other projects? 

This project didn’t give me ideas for other projects but I know that I want the next project I do to have something related to organisms.

7. How did COVID-19 affect the completion of your project?

COVID-19 did not affect the completion of my project because I only needed my house and I didn’t have to interact with anyone anyway.