CHM1032 summer ‘12
Graphing and Estimating
Formal Lab Report
Introduction: Today scientists put acquired data into a form of a graph. This said graph is designed to help make predictions and furthermore, study and understand the experiment and its contents at hand. The Graphing and Estimating lab involves just that. The lab is designed to collect data from several tests involving burn time of a candle.
Oxygen, O2, is a kind of gas. A lot of the air we breathe as human beings is oxygen. Which is good since we need oxygen to stay alive. Oxygen is also a primary element in fire. Fire is a chemical process. Three elements are needed for this process: oxygen, heat and fuel. Without one of those elements a fire cannot start or continue.
Purpose: The aim of the laboratory exercise is to determine the time it takes for the flame of a candle to die out. The purpose of the experiment is to observe the burning flame and to determine the rate, in seconds, at which the flame of a candle burns out once it’s oxygen supplies has been depleted. To obtain the data, several beakers arranging in size will be used to help exhaust the oxygen supply to the flame. The purpose of the Graphing and Estimating lab is to consider what happens to the burn time as the beaker size gets smaller. The objective is to put the acquired data into a form of a graph and to use said graph to predict burn time of an unknown beaker size.
Procedure: The Graphing and Estimating lab exercise involves materials such as: a tea light candle, a 100mL beaker, 150 mL beaker, 250 mL beaker, 400 mL beaker, a 600 mL beaker, a graduated cylinder and a stop watch. The first item at hand to consider is to make sure each beaker being used in the experiment is dry prior to use. On a flat surface, light the candle and wait for a steady flame. Place one of the beakers over the lit candle and start the stopwatch immediately. Observe the amount of time it takes for