If you were paying attention to the food coloring experiment, you may have notic
ID: 151022 • Letter: I
Question
If you were paying attention to the food coloring experiment, you may have noticed some immediate differences in cold vs. hot water when the dye went in. You may have noticed the whole dye blob suddenly move. Compare notes on these phenomena, try to repeat them, and see if you can't figure out together what is happening. If you see an opposite result from a classmate, the difference was a control variableIf you were paying attention to the food coloring experiment, you may have noticed some immediate differences in cold vs. hot water when the dye went in. You may have noticed the whole dye blob suddenly move. Compare notes on these phenomena, try to repeat them, and see if you can't figure out together what is happening. If you see an opposite result from a classmate, the difference was a control variable
Explanation / Answer
Food coloring experiment is done to show the effect of temperature on diffusion. Diffusion is the movement of particles from higher concentration to lower concentration.
We observe that when food coloring is placed in hot water it diffuses quickly.
While if the same food coloring is placed in cold water it takes time to diffuse or mix together with water.
The basic principle underlying this phenomenon is that Diffusion takes place quicker in hot water than in cold water. Increase in temperature leads to increase in diffusion. The reason for this is that hot water molecules move faster because of more energy in them.
If we see an opposite result from classmate it means control variable was different. Control variables are those whose value should remain unchanged through the course of experiment. Example of control variable could be – Amount of water used, Amount of food color etc. While independent variable are those whose values are deliberately changed by Experimenter. Dependent variable change in response to change in value of independent variable.