Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

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Hello!

I am assuming that you are using differently coloured freshwater and saltwater to see a visual separation in layers.

Theoretically, the saltwater should be denser than the freshwater and form two different layers. However, you want to be sure to do this very slowly. If you just pour the freshwater into the saltwater, you will be creating a mixture at first and then you are, in essence, diluting the saltwater. This will not yield the two different layers you are aiming for. Instead, I would recommend that you slowly add the coloured freshwater onto the saltwater drop by drop, perhaps by using an eye dropper or something like that.

Try it and tell me if that helps!

-crystalball

IT WORKED! YAY! Thank you so much-Crystalball!

Great! Happy to help!

I have to draw a graph as part of my results for my SRP. But I'm stuck on what I'm supposed to write for the y and x axis. If I wrote time on the x axis what will my y axis be?? For my table I simply wrote the time (minutes) and observations every minute-for the 6 trials. Please help? And please reply ASAP!

Hello, I just read this thread and had an idea for a graph you could do. You could do a bar graph, so the x axis would be type of water and you would have two bars, one representing fresh water and the other salt water. The y-axis could be height of the water in the container. You could measure the middle of where the water comes to on the container, so the bottom layer would be a lower number than the upper layer, and it would show that the two layers were at different levels in the container.

Also, a picture or figure could be helpful to include as a "result."

Hope that helps or at least gives you an idea of a type of graph you could do.