Penguin Project_Project Blog 3/10/17

Summary:

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     This week in science we completed our penguin project, what we had to do is make a house for an ice cube (that represents the penguin) then we had to build a house or structure for it to stay cold in the sun for a while. What I learned from this project was styrofoam is very good at keeping things cold.  Another thing I learned is aluminum foil is good at both keeping things hot and cold. The other thing I learned was that when you are doing an experiment you should use things in it that you have researched so you know that it should work. The last thing I learned is that you should use a bigger house when doing this project, based off of the different houses the bigger ones did better.

Backward-Looking:

     What I knew about the project before I started it was that aluminum foil and styrofoam are pretty good at keeping things cold (what I didn't know until after is that styrofoam is actually very good instead of pretty good). Another thing I knew was that the three forms of heat radiation, convection, and conduction, I knew I had to make sure those 3 things didn't happen to keep the ice cube cold. One other thing I knew was ice cubes melt fast so you have to keep them very cold. Also that if ice cubes touch things that are hot the ice cube will melt even if the thing is not hot it isn't the same temperature as the ice cube. The last thing I knew was that you don't need materials that cost a lot of money to keep something cold.

Inward-Looking:

     I feel okay about my penguin project. What I liked about it was that we used a lot of creativity on it, for example, the shape of it. I liked that because it shows we are trying different things to keep it cold which shows that we tried. What I didn't like about it was that it didn't as good as the other houses did at keeping the ice cube cold. I didn't like that because I feel like it makes us look bad and it doesn't impress Mrs. R. What I enjoy about our work is the fact that it is shaped like an igloo because how penguins live in the artic we like to think of igloos when we think of the arctic. Another thing was also making it because it was really fun.

Outward-Looking:

I would give my project a B+ to an A. I would give it this grade because I feel that our grade should go down a little bit because the house didn't to well at the job it was suppost to do. I would also give it this grade because we had lots of creativity and I think that that should help the grade get higher because it shows we put work into it. Another reason is because on our doc that we had to write on about our house I feel like we gave good explanations for all the questions. Another reason is because of how we used all the good things that each person had in their design like she said we should do. The last reason is because we followed the two rules she gave to us make your house at minimum 5 by 5 inches and make sure that the materials you used are materials you can find at your house.

Forward-Looking:

What I would change if I could do this project over again is take a little more time in researching so I could find much better materials than what we used. Another thing would be to make our house with much more styrofoam because the people who used lots of styrofoam were successful. Also teams that were successful made their house bigger and I think that that would of helped. One other thing would have been to use less cotton balls because I feel that we used way to much cotton that it got the house hot. The last thing would be to maybe making a little door that you could open to put the cube inside of the house instead of putting the ice cube in then puutting something on top of a whole.