Week 2 Reflection

Through the course of class this week, we involved ourselves in a few experiments that involved recording measurements of mass and volume. Mr. Abud introduced this whole concept to providing an example of what mass really is and how it can change through his experiment with candles. He started by putting two birthday candles into the ends of a straw before piercing the middle of the straw with a bent paper clip attached to a styrafoam cup. The candles were unbalanced due to the fact that one was heavier than the other.Once the candles were lit, the straw begin to slowly spin as the wax melted from each candle gradually making them lighter and lighter. This was done to show how the mass of an object can change when something is added or taken away from its system.

Another activity that we completed in class involved the questioning of mass and volume being the same thing. Each small group was required to measure either a cube or a cylinder before running five different tests on it by adding different amounts of water to the container. We were then able to calculate the volume of the container by adding the measurement of the designated amount of water to the equation. After this, we would then take the water in the container and pour it into a flask that helped us determine how many milliliters of water was in the container. By recording this, we were able to determine that there was always more water measured in the container than in the flask. This further helped us in the process of recording our measurements on our graph of data.

Our next experiment in class involved many different colored blocks that each had coordinating shapes. There were six blocks total: a silver rectanglar prism and cube, a red rectanglar prism and cube, and then a black rectanglar prism and cube. Our group utilized each of the following shapes except for the red rectangular prism. The consensus that my group reached was that even the cubes and prisms had the same measurements, that didn't necessarily mean that they all had the same amount of mass, for they could each be made of different materials. After measuring each individual item on the scale, it soon became evident that our hypothesis was indeed correct and that just because an item has a certain size to it doesn't mean that its mass will coincide with its measurements.