A student designs an experiment to study whether land or water holds heat longer. She takes two paper cups and labels them 1 and 2. She fills cup 1 with water at room temperature and cup 2 with sand to the same height. She inserts a thermometer into each cup. What is the next step she should perform?

Question

A.
place both the cups in a tub of ice water


B.
place both the cups in a tub of warm water


C.
place cup 1 in a tub of ice water and cup 2 in a tub of warm water


D.
place cup 1 in a tub of warm water and place cup 2 in a tub of ice water

Answer 1

The purpose of the experiment is to study whether land (represented by sand) or water holds heat longer. To effectively compare how each material retains heat, the student should start at the same initial temperature for both materials.

The next logical step would be to change the environmental conditions and observe how long each medium maintains its temperature. Therefore, placing cup 1 (water) in a tub of ice water and cup 2 (sand) in a tub of warm water would expose the water to a cooling environment while the sand is in a warming environment, making it possible to see how quickly each loses heat.

So the correct answer is:

C. place cup 1 in a tub of ice water and cup 2 in a tub of warm water