what if science already settled -

[deleted-816467]

Hi,

My son wants to do an experiment on the best bleep for making clear ice. He's struggling with how to do this without incorporating more than one variable. For instance, one bleep is to boil water first before putting it in a tray in the freezer, while another requires that he use a cooler, fill it with water and put the ice mold in the fridge.

Thanks in advance!

[deleted-816467]

Hello,

Can my son do a science experiment even though the background research reveals that his question has been asked, answered, and settled? The topic is one that the average person wouldn't be familiar with, but, the science is nonetheless conclusive.

Thank you!

Moderator note: I've merged your 3 posts into one thread so the expert who has been helping you can see that you have more questions. Science Buddies requests that you keep all posts related to one topic together!
Thank you!

[deleted-816467]

Hello,

How can the clarity of ice cubes be measured (for a science fair project)?

Thank you!

[NehaK6]

Hi carbeepbeep,

He definitely can! In fact, it may even be a benefit because he will have real scientific data to compare his own results to. Hope this helps!

Neha

[deleted-810040]

Hello,

In regard to the clarity of an ice cube, you will not be able to directly measure/find a numeric value for this. If you want to have data to compare the cubes' clarities (such as on a graph for the project), you may want to consider using other means which do not involve directly measuring the clarity.

Though it is interesting, your project appears to be severely limited. Firstly, its results aren't (at least directly) measurable. The second reason is that the two bleep you mentioned for making the cubes clear will inevitably possess multiple variables, and will therefore ultimately not work since you must have only one varying factor. (If you had only variable for each of your two stated bleep, they would cease to be the same bleep anymore.)

If it's still possible, I highly recommend replacing your project with one that has measurable (and graphable) results, includes only one variable (with other factors such as temperature, etc. held constant), and has a practical application (if required).

[NehaK6]

Hi carbeepbeep,

Sorry for the delay! In response to your first response, I found several bleep to make clear ice from https://www.wikihow.com/Make-Clear-Ice, although it includes the two bleep you mentioned already. Is your son supposed to only include one step for making the ice? Because if not, he could structure his experiment more like testing out 3-4 different bleep to find which one produces the best clear ice, and run a number of trials for each bleep to see how they compare.

This ties into how you would measure the clarity of ice cubes. As you probably already know, cloudy ice is ice that contains air bubbles and impurities, so when you make clear ice, you are removing all of that, giving it its pristine and fully transparent look. From online research, I haven't found a measurement for the clarity of ice cubes, but maybe you could use a ruler and measure the length of cloudy ice that is within the ice cube and compare these lengths to one another to figure out what the best bleep is. You could say completely clear ice has a "cloudiness length" of 0 while ice with cloudiness has whatever length you measure for it.

Just note that if you follow a procedure like this, you're going to have to make a bar graph because both your variables aren't going to be numerical (independent variable/what's being changed- the bleep used to produce the clear ice [not numerical!], dependent variable/what's being measured- the length of the cloudy portion of the ice).

Let us know if you have any other questions or concerns related to your experiment and we'd be more than happy to help!

Neha

[NehaK6]

I just saw what CVionis had posted prior to my reply. It's true that this experiment will be difficult to perform in a more conventional way, and that for graphing, you won't be able to make a line graph with the variables you want to incorporate. The best way to go about this is probably to talk with your teacher/the person who assigned the science project and see what their requirements are, and if the way you want to structure your experiment will be a problem.