…is the question I discovered the an answer to today through an investigation. But why am I doing this investigation?
Yesterday, I concluded the chemistry section in one of the science workbooks by rendering the combustion section complete. To end the science work of the week, I carried out this investigation, equipped with the hypothesis “as beaker size increases, the time it takes a tealight to go out will increase”.
Results: Table and Graph
Conclusion:
These results prove that the hypothesis is correct: as the size of the beaker placed over the tealight increases, the tealight stays lit for longer. Furthermore, the points on the graph are close to the line of best fit, showing that the positive correlation between beaker size and time taken for the tealight to go out is strong.
These results can also be explained using science. Combustion requires fuel, heat and oxygen. By placing a beaker over a tealight, it stops more oxygen being able to reach the flame, eventually causing it to go out. However, the bigger the beaker used, the more oxygen is trapped with the flame, resulting in the time taken for the flame to go out increasing with beaker size.