Investigating the Effect the Surface Area of an Organism on the Rate of Heat Loss

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Investigating the Effect the Surface Area of an Organism on the Rate of Heat Loss

Introduction

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The surface area: volume ratio of an organism gets larger as the

organism gets smaller. As the surface area of an organism is what

affects heat loss, you are unlikely to get small animals such as

insects in the North Pole and large animals such as polar bears in the

desert but you do get large animals such as elephants in the desert

and small animals such as rabbits in the arctic. BUT: These are warm

blooded animals so can control their body temperature where as lizards

are cold blooded and do not have the ability to control it. Therefore

to make the experiment easier I will use water to represent a cold

blooded animal as water being an inanimate object, does not have the

ability to control its temperature like a cold blooded animal.

Aim

===

The aim of this experiment is to find out the relationship between

surface area and rate of heat loss.

Variables

[IMAGE]

Prediction

As the volume of water increases, the rate of heat loss will decrease.

This is because the surface area to volume ratio of the higher volumes

is much lower than that of the smaller volumes, therefore the smaller

volumes will drop 100C very quickly compared to the higher volumes.

Method

I will use volumes 20,30,40,50,60,70,80,90 and 100cm3 of water at 700C

The water will be put in a beaker and the time for the temperature to

drop from 70-600C will be recorded. To start at 700C I will allow the

water at a higher temperature to cool.

Apparatus

Boiling tubes

Thermometers

Kettle (to heat water)

Stopwatches

Amendments

As the boiling tubes only hold 50cm3 I will use 10, 20, 30, 40 and

50cm3 of water to take results.

RESULTS

Time taken is given in minutes and seconds.

Volume Time taken 1 Time taken 2 Average

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