Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

For my Science fair project, my topic is "How does the temperature of cold and warm water affect the movement of a balloon?"

I saw the topic on the Science Buddies website, and I thought I was interested in doing it. I didn't pay attention to the fact that there was an asterik afterward the project title, so the topic was basically summarized and didn't contain the notes I needed to do my research. Also, the links are outdated. None of them work which makes this even more frustrating. The most I could do was write down notes on cold fronts and warm fronts, but I need more to go into my research. :/

~* PacifiquexCoast *~

Hi,

I found the Scibuddies project idea you are talking about and I read the abstract: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p016.shtml

The idea I got was that the balloons are being used to show that cold air sinks because it is heavier and warm air rises. Ok. You can heat up or cool down a balloon filled with air but how do you measure its ‘movement’? I guess you could use balloons filled with helium so they rise, but then what do you measure? How long it takes for the balloons to rise up a certain distance?

You could experiment by tying different lengths of string on the balloons, putting one in the freezer and the other in a warm oven, then timing how long it takes for the balloons to rise to the end of the string.

I hope this helps.

Good luck!

Sybee

SciB wrote:Hi,

I found the Scibuddies project idea you are talking about and I read the abstract: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p016.shtml

The idea I got was that the balloons are being used to show that cold air sinks because it is heavier and warm air rises. Ok. You can heat up or cool down a balloon filled with air but how do you measure its ‘movement’? I guess you could use balloons filled with helium so they rise, but then what do you measure? How long it takes for the balloons to rise up a certain distance?

You could experiment by tying different lengths of string on the balloons, putting one in the freezer and the other in a warm oven, then timing how long it takes for the balloons to rise to the end of the string.

I hope this helps.

Good luck!

Sybee

Thank you! You're response was very helpful. I will definitely consider this.

~*PacifiquexCoast*~