Properties of Water

Properties of Water Lab

There are many different properties of water and in the lab we got to see some of the different types. We had three labs  hat we needed to complete and learn something different from all three of them. There were different reasoning's as to why the water did what it did in each lab.

Pennies Lab

In lab A which was the pennies lab we had to get a penny and a dropper. At the beginning it was quite difficult for my group and I to put the drops of water on the penny without it spilling over. We each had to do it quite a few times before we realized we had to just go slow while we put them on the penny. Between all of my group our average drops were 54 for drops before it had spilled over. We then did the lab again but this time we used alcohol and with using alcohol we didn't get as many drops. Our average drops for alcohol as a group was 29 drops before it again had spilled over. I then observed that the water or alcohol would start to build up a shell over the penny with the water over the edge and this was called surface tension.

Wax Lab

In lab B I had to gather a small piece of wax paper and put a tiny drop of water. Before I cut the drop of water in half, I observed it and notice that the wax paper had not absorbed the water. I later on learned the wax paper was hydrophobic and that had explained why the water wouldn't stick to it. I had also noticed that the drop of water was round circular and bubbly. As I used my toothpick to cut the drop in half, the larger drop had separated into smaller drops. The property of water that was being evaluated in the lab was cohesion. If I had used notebook paper rather then wax paper the notebook paper would have absorbed the water because notebook paper is not hydrophobic like wax paper is.

String Lab

The string lab was by far the most interesting lab between the other two labs we had to do. We had to get two beakers and a string of our chosen size, one of the beakers was filled with water while the other one was empty. The whole objective was to get the water to travel through the string into the empty beaker. I of course thought this was going to be simple and easy going but I was wrong, it was harder then it looked. My group and I had made a big mess with the water before we actually got the hang of it. Jake and I ended up learning that the winning solution to this challenge was to keep the string tight and hold it up pretty straight. When we poured the water we had to make sure it caught to the string. During out class discussion we learned that the water sticks to the string because of adhesion which means water sticks to other objects.

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