Solution Fluency

In Science class, we had our first lab. My classmates and I had to discover which out of the four detergents worked the best on removing stains. The 4 detergents we used were Ultra, Woolite, Sunlight, and Tide. Then we ripped up an old towel rag and made a stain on 5 shreds of rags.

DEFINE: The challenge in my lab was figuring out different ways by proving which detergent would work the best since I didn’t have any access to a washing machine. I was in a group with 2 of my friends and we figured out a solution. We poured the detergents in 5 different beakers filled with an equal amount of water, and then dipped the towel rags into the detergent water. We stirred the rags in our detergent and soap solution as if it was in a washing machine or 15 minutes.

DISCOVER: The questions that my group and I needed to ask was how to get the stains out the rags. We all pitched in ideas and then my friend Rachel suggested that we should mix the detergents with water and mix it around in a beaker, as if it was a washing machine.

DELIVER: In the picture above those were the towel rag outcomes from each detergent. The first rag was the Ultra detergent. The second was the Woolite (which did the best). The third was the Tide. The fourth was the Sunlight.  And the 5th was the control group which was used as the experimental rag, we just used plain water, in attempt to get the stain out.

Since my group and I chose the hardest stain to get out (paint), it was hard to try to remove the stains efficiently without using a washing machine.

DEBRIEF: I knew before doing this project that the outcome wouldn’t be efficient. And I expected for the most expensive detergent to work the best, which was the Woolite (and my hypothesis was correct!). The process of the experiment was tiring, especially stirring a rag in a beaker for 15 minutes, but the lab was really fun.