Prithiv Kumar, Rebecca Siems, Brianna Ringo, Emily Penn, Lauren Jackson

Specific Heat Lab

How is energy absorbed and lost due to the compensation of surface material?

Purpose: Determine the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of soil,
sand, and water. This should indicate the specific heat of forest, desert, and aquatic
climates. (Correct this if Im wrong,)

Procedure:
1.) Collect and find mass of 3 petri dishes.
2.) Put soil, sand, and water in the dishes.
3.) Measure the new mass of each dish with the substance. Then subtract the
mass of the dish to find the mass of each substance.
4.) Use a temperature probe to find the initial temperature of each substance.
Record the temperature on a spreadsheet.
5.) Place each dish under a lamp. After a minute, find the temperature of each
substance. Record on a spreadsheet. Repeat every minute for ten minutes.
6.) After ten minutes, turn off the lamp and move it out of the way. Find the
temperature of the substances as they cool every minute. Repeat for ten
minutes.
7.) Using the known specific heat of water, calculate the specific heat of sand
and soil.
8.) Calculate the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature. A higher
specific heat will require more energy to raise the temperature.

These findings impact the climate of different locations. Since sand has the lowest
specific heat, it doesnt take a lot of heat to make its surface hot. A location that is
mostly sand would be hotter than if that location was mostly soil or water due to
sand having a lower specific heat than soil and water. A location with mostly soil
would be cooler than sand but hotter than water because soil has a specific heat in
between those two. Since water has the highest specific heat, it requires a lot of
heat to make it hot. Large bodies of water are better heat moderators than soil
because waters specific heat is higher than soils so it would take higher
temperatures for the water to get hot than for the soil.

The temperature differences that we observed for the sand when compared to the
potting soil was that the sand started off with a lower temperature at 72.8 while the
soil started off at a higher temperature of 73.6. Once the sand got to minute 2 the
sand jumped up to a temperature of 81.1 while the potting soil only moved up 1
degree. The sand has a higher temperature in the end of the lab where the
temperature stayed consistently in the 80s. The sands range of temperatures
changed fast once we took away the light source due to the low heat capacity.
Which in the end the sand took the least amount of energy to raise the temperature
and keep it at a sustainable temperature compared to the potting soil.