1.) Question- If I use 3 brands of paper towels, Bounty, Scott, and the Publix Brand, and each is cut in a square of 7 inches x 7 inches and place them inside a graduated cylinder for 5 seconds each then taken out. Which Brand of paper towel will absorb the most water?
2.) Hypothesis- If Bounty, Scott, and the Publix Brand are cut in even squares and placed in water for 5 seconds then taken out then I believe that Bounty will be the one to absorb the most milliliters of water, because the Bounty brand has a thicker sheet of paper which means that it is capable of holding more water betweens the sheet’s borders.
3.) Materials-
1 roll of Bounty, Scott, and Publix Brand paper towels (cut in 5 inch x 5 inch squares)
1 Graduated Cylinder
1 Scissors
1 Clock
Estimated amount of 1000 milliliters of H20 (Water)
Take the plastic covering off the roll of Bounty**
Cut three 5 inch x 5 inch squares off any sheet of Bounty with the scissors (Don’t include tear line inside the square).
Grab your toothpick and poke it through corner, this is what you will use to poke the paper towel piece into the water.
Make sure the clock is working correctly.
Fill the graduated cylinder accurately to 95mL of water from a source of water.
Wait for the clock to land on a 5 second interval.
Carefully place one square of Bounty inside the graduated cylinder, and wait for the clock’s second hand to move 5 seconds.
Take the paper towel rapidly, yet carefully, out of the graduated cylinder and dispose of it.
Observe and write down the change of water displacement in “millimeters“ on the sheet of paper with your pencil/pen for the measurement take you are on. For example: If the water went from 80mL to 53mL on the graduated cylinder you would write down on the measurement take you are on, 27mL.
Repeat steps 6-10 with each of the four squares cut out.
After finishing the section for the paper towel brand, repeat steps 3-11 with each of the paper towel brands not experimented on yet.
Trial 1.) It grew in size when it was dipped in the water. The color was more visible, this was especially noticeable for the red design. There were no rips.
Trial 2.) The paper towel wouldn’t drip when wet. It had no rips what so ever. The color red was visible.
Trial 3.) The paper towel was consistent of containing the water. The red and green colors were visible.
Scott:
Trial 1.) The paper towel square turned smaller. The design stayed the same color. There were no rips. The design stayed the same.
Trial 2.) The paper towel square was the same size as the first trial. The paper towel dripped lots of water. The design loss some of its color.
Trial 3.)Turned small like the other trials. It dripped lots of water again. It had a rip near a bottom corner from the position I was holding it by.
Publix:
Trial 1.) The paper towel turned extremely thin. The paper towel did not drip much. The green design was a little bit more visible. There were no rips.
Trial 2.) There was a small rip near one of the sides. The paper towel contained the water. The design remained the same.
Trial 3.) There was no rip. The paper towel dripped only some drops of water. The design grew less visible.
6.) Conclusion:
My hypothesis was supported. My hypothesis stated that Bounty would win for the reason that it is thicker than the other paper towel brand which meant it could probably hold more water in its borders. The data that supports it is that it absorbed more water than the other paper towel brands for example it absorbed 22mL in trial 1 for bounty but 8mL for Scott and 5 mL for Publix. It absorbed near two times more than Scott and Publix brands. This could have been biased by errors in my experiment to make it a little less accurate than it could have been. Two sources of errors are, mainly because of the accuracy of my measurements. The first measurement error was when I was cutting the squares for each paper towel brand. I think I made some errors with it because I kept noting some of the sides of the square looked crooked. Another measurement error was when I filled the graduated cylinder with water. I noticed that I was measuring the water under the meniscus which made the experiment go a little off, but I corrected some of it. I have encountered a new questions as my experiment progressed, one of them was: Whether the design of the paper towel affects how much the paper towel absorbs in mL? Another question I had was: Whether the color affected how much the paper towel absorbed?
A way I could use the information I obtained from this experiment by using Bounty because it is more effective which means less sheets per spill. This could benefit everyone by saving them up to two-hundred dollars wasted on other paper towels like Scott. I could share this information with others by setting a website about this experiment.
There were many difficult parts in this experiment but the hardest was getting the measurements right. I think this was the hardest part because it was stressful to make everything right, which made it harder.
This project helped me with the understanding of the scientific method because it made me set up an experiment without the person help of a partner or teacher. I think this project was effective because it dealt with a somewhat long-term project.
