Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I am doing a project for the blue light of luminol and in my hypothesis, I wrote down 1/3 cups and my teacher circled cups and wrote metric next to it. I was wondering how I would change it to be correct?

(Hypothesis=If 1/3 cups of hot and cold water are separately distributed into two Styrofoam cups containing luminol, perborate, and copper sulfate, then the cup containing the hot water will causes the luminol to have a brighter effect because hot water always has more energy than cold water, whether by molecule or by volume.

Also, what would my constant, experimental group, dependent and independent variables be in this experiment?

Hello juliablt33,

Nice work with your hypothesis! I think you’ve included all of the necessary elements. As it should, your hypothesis identifies the independent and dependent variables in your experiment.

An independent variable is something you change to cause a response in a dependent variable. So what are you changing? That is your independent variable. What are you measuring (or observing) that is due to your independent variable? That is your dependent variable.

Constants are things that are not changed during an experiment. You’ve included one constant in your hypothesis about ingredients of your reaction mixture.

To convert your 1/3 cup volume to metric units (mL for example), you need to know how many milliliters (mL) are in a cup. You’d then divide the mL per cup by 3 to get the number of mL in 1/3 cup.

The following link has all kinds of metric conversions, including mL in a cup:

http://www.metric-conversions.org/volum ... -table.htm

I hope this helps. Please post again if you have more questions.

A. Norman