Professional Documents
Culture Documents
You need to bring a bottle of water of 1.5l of capacity per team, made of clear plastic, and cut above its half part (3/4
of is height).
2) What is a hygrometer? Describe how it works (you can look it up in the internet)
3) In a rainy day, we collect 182 cm3 in a cylindrical recipient. If the diameter of the base of the recipient is 8cm, how many
l/m2 have fallen?
4) We are at the sea level on a cloudy day (día de borrasca). Will the atmospheric pressure be higher, equal or lower than
the normal pressure (760mmHg or 1013mb)? Explain your answer
1
DCE1 Lab Session 4
General characteristics of the experimental activity that follows
Place of performance (Ámbito de realización): Lab
Character: Semi closed. Partially Supervised work.
Type of practical work Didactic objectives to reach: Skills, investigation/research.
(See Figure 1.4 in Topic 1, p. 38) Verification.
2
DCE1 Lab Session 4
Activities to perform during the lab practical session
Development of the lab session
1. Measuring the fallen rain
A pluviometer is, in essence, a recipient that we situate outdoors and collects the rain water. You need to bring a clear
plastic bottle of water of 1.5l of capacity, cut above its half part. In the lab we will put the upper cut part upside down
into the lower cut part, as it is shown in the image. We can simulate the fallen rain by pouring water into the bottle.
1) Describe how can you use the bottle to measure the collected water, how to
determine the quantity collected in an easy way, what units to use, etc.
2) Pour some water into the bottle, imagining that it is the rain fallen during the
previous night
3) Describe below the procedure followed to measure the collected rain (include
your calculations here) and express it in litres per square metre (l/m2).
EXTENSION: Pluviometric data are often given as "mm of rain" instead of l/m 2. Does it make sense to give capacity
values as height values? It is does, how do you explain it? How many l/m 2 correspond to 1 mm of fallen rain above the
ground?
3
DCE1 Lab Session 4
2. Measuring atmospheric pressure
A metallic barometer will be used (aneroid barometer), the most used both at home and in labs.
Atmospheric pressure will vary with the elevation of the place we are at, as we will always have a thinner layer of air if
we use as our reference the atmospheric pressure at sea level. At sea level, the standard pressure is 760mmHg
(equivalent to 1013mb). In Granada, for example, we are at 700m above sea level, so we will never reach such pressure,
we will always have lower pressure, even during higher pressure events.
Atmospheric pressure may change from one day to the next as a consequence of the
movements of the air masses circulating above an area (cyclones, low pressure and
anticyclones, high pressure). The atmospheric pressure (Patm) is the same inside and outside
the lab, so we can use the barometer in the lab to measure the pressure in our area.
Be aware that the barometer we are using has two different measuring scales, and a certain
measurement precision.
1) Provide the readings of the values for the current atmospheric pressure in the lab using the barometer.
± mmHg
Current atmospheric
pressure
(Date: / / )
± mb
The barometer has a mobile dial (aguja móvil) that may be manually moved towards the current reading in
order to see the changes from one day to the next. Using this, we can detect if the pressure has increased
or decreased in relation to previous days. If pressure has gone up (anticyclone), we have stability, if the
pressure has gone down (cyclone, borrasca), we have instability.
2) Compare the measured atmospheric pressure with the one provided in an isobar map. You can access a
map like this in the weather forecast webpage (AEMET: inicio, el tiempo, observación, hoy y últimos días).
Select the variable you want to see. Here you can also see values for other variables.
http://www.aemet.es/es/eltiempo/observacion/ultimosdatos?k=and&w=0&datos=img&x=h24&f=presion
Presión atmosférica según el mapa de isobaras
(Téngase en cuenta también el error de esta última
determinación sin más que observar en cuántos mb se ± mb
diferencian dos isobaras consecutivas).
4
DCE1 Lab Session 4
In order to take the readings, we need to look at the lowest part of each tube, the
blue segment.
Within the tubes there are two small pieces of steel that the mercury moves when
the temperature rises or decreases during the time span we are measuring.
However, once they reach the maximum or minimum value within that range, they
don't "fall" again, they remain there, giving us the value of the maximum and
minimum temperature.
1) Take the measurement of the temperature in the lab (it should be the same in
both tubes)
Current temperature: ________ oC
2) Now, let's imagine we are measuring the temperature range of one day in
Granada. Using a magnet, we will artificially make the mercury move as if we are
increasing the temperature by 7º at midday and decreasing the temperature by 12º
at night. Take now the measurement of the maximum and minimum temperature
for a complete day in Granada.
tmax : tmín :