Lab: #6

Date: 02/ 05/ 22

Title: Plan and Design Lab: Conservation of Energy

Purpose:
To use the law of conservation of energy and heat of combustion to determine whether pumpkin
seeds or peanuts have more energy.

Hypothesis: The peanut seed has more fat and will therefore release more energy when burnt
than the pumpkin seed.

Materials:

1. Test tube
2. Clamp
3. Stand
4. Bunsen burner
5. Small clamp/tweezers
6. Measuring cylinder
7. Thermometer
8. Scalpel
9. Scale
10. Pumpkin seed
11. peanut

Chemical materials:

1. 25 ml distilled water

Procedure:

For the peanut:

1. Measure 25 ml water in the measuring cylinder and pour it into the test tube.
2. Set up the stand and clamp the test tube to the stand
3. Weigh and 0.5 gram of a peanut. If it is more than half a gram, cut it down to the
weight using the scalpel.
4. Measure and record the initial temperature of the water using the thermometer
5. Grab the peanut using the tweezers and set it on fire using the bunsen burner.
 6. Once it has caught fire, place it underneath the test tube and hold it there until it
has completely burnt out
7. Measure and record the temperature change in the water using the thermometer.

For the pumpkin seed:

1. Repeat steps 1-7 as stated for the peanut, but instead use a pumpkin seed.

Variables:

Independent: the change in temperature of the water

Dependent variable: the food item that is burnt, either the peanut or pumpkin seed
Control: the amount of water (25ml) that is being heated:

Predicted Results:

The temperature change in the water from burning the peanut will be greater than the
temperature of the water from burning the pumpkin seed.

Limiting Source:

Because this experiment was not done using a bomb calorimeter, not all the energy burnt off by
the food particle will be transferred into the water.

Sources of Error:

The exact change of temperature of the water will be slightly off due to some off the heat
dissipating into the atmosphere rather than heating up the water

Assumption:

The energy gained or lost by the surroundings is the same as the energy gained or lost by the
system.