The students in Mrs. Wrighter’s 2nd grade class conducted an experiment today in which they were trying to answer the question “Do mints change the temperature of the water?” To begin, the students assembled into groups and each group was provided with a different type of mint (Lifesavers, Mentos, Starlight Peppermints, Altoids, and IceBreakers). They had to write their observations about the mint that they had and make predictions about what the mint would do to the water.
To track the data, students used the GoTemps, which are USB thermometers, to see how the temperature changed. The GoTemps automatically graph the data every second on the screen. We started with a baseline by putting the GoTemp in a cup of room temperature water. Then we did another run with 5 mints, and repeated all the way up to 30 mints in the cup.
The results were very interesting! We had some varied data for the Mentos, Starlight Peppermints, and Altoids, but Ice Breakers mints and Lifesavers Wintergreen mints showed a consistent decrease in temperature.
