How do air conditions affect evaporation rates?

Part 1

Topic: Water evaporation

Question: How do air condition affect evaporation rates?

Prediction:

• The sponge being dried by the electric heater will dry faster opposed to the on being dried by the electric  fan. We think this because the heat from the heater will evaporate the water from the sponge quicker

• We made this prediction because in the summer after a rainy day and the next day the sun is shinning    usually the heat from the sun will evaporate the water (puddles) from the sidewalks.

• When it comes to plants take a flower for example, when its exposed to heat the plant runs out of water  and you must water it again and that cycle continues.

• When you have a shower, it would take longer to air dry your hair rather than simply use a blow dryer (with heat)

• We also believe that the sponge that is being air dried will dry the slowest.

Part 2

Materials:

• 3 sponges

• 3 bowls (something that can withstand heat)   

• 1/2 cups of water per bowl 

• A heater fan

• A fan

Steps:

1. First you would get your 3 bowls fill them with a 1/2 a cup of water, just make sure the water is same amount in each bowl.

2.You will then need to put 1 sponge in each bowl and make sure that all the sponges are the same size.

3. Now you will need to place each bowl in a separate room. (One with a fan, one with a heater and one without a fan or a heater.

4. Then you’ll check on the bowls every few hours and make observations. You’ll write down which water evaporated faster.

(Optional: If you want to make things easier when it comes to timing how long it takes for the sponges to dry, instead of doing it one by one you can do all 3 at the same time.)

Dangers:

Make sure that you don’t get any of the cords in water. Also, make sure to dry your hands if you got any water on them when you were filling the bowls because when you plug in the cords to the outlet. Be careful with the heater, if certain objects are too close it can start a fire. 

Part 3

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Part 4

• We predicted that the bowl and sponge being dried by the heater fan would dry faster and the sponge being air dried dried the slowest. After doing this experiment we were able to put our prediction to the test and by doing so we proved that our prediction was right. We found that the heat was a faster way to evaporate the water from the sponge.

• We found out that when there is an increase of temperature that will cause an increase of kinetic energy of surface molecules. This causes the process of  water evaporation to go by much faster. Because we used a fan heater, it also worked as a substitute for “wind.” This is helpful because if there was no “wind” there would be nothing to blow/take away the water vapor that has been removed from the sponge and of it was nothing to blow/take away the water vapor from the sponge, the sponge would have taken much more time to dry. The moving air from the heater fan carries away the water vapor.

• Things we could have done better.

–  We split up the experiment (I was in charge of the bowl and sponge with the fan and the one without a fan or the heater fan and Tyler was in charge of the bowl with the heater fan) and since we split it up we weren’t able to give all 3 bowls the same starting point.

– Neither of us we able to indicate an exact time when the sponge was completely dried.

–  Tyler and I used different sponges that we different sizes.

– If we could we would have done the experiment in rooms with the same temperature for the start.

– Since I used regular fan there were some uncertanties due to the fact that a bigger fan could produce more “wind” which could have helped in drying the sponge faster. I used a smaller fan, but placed it on maximum speed.

– Since it’s winter my house is a lot colder then usual, this might have caused some effects on how fast the air dried sponge dried.

• Heat drys faster, then the fan and the slowest was air dried.