Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Topic : Absorbency of the paper towels

1)question: Every experiment is designed to aswer a question or solve a problem.
What question I can ask?

2)hypothesis: After asking a question you need to make an educated guess as to what you think is going to happen.
What I can write.

3)Materials: You must include a complete list of the materials you will use to set up and carry out of your experiment.
What materials I need to use?

4)Procedure: I need to explain what you will do during the lab to answer the question. (Be specific.)
what Ineed to Write in the procedure and how I'm gonna make it?

Hi,
For your absorbency of paper towels
You can ask yourself what do I want to do in this project?
You can ask what determines the absorbency of paper towels and which brand absorbs the best?

For the hypothesis research your topic. Research absorbency of paper towels.
http://www.selah.k12.wa.us/soar/sciproj ... nthaP.html
http://amos.indiana.edu/library/scripts/towel.html
http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/20 ... .Ot.r.html
If you want more I got if from http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sa=X ... ls&spell=1

Then write a guess as to which brand absorbs the most liquid after you see the research in this project.
For materials and procedure check the first link I gave above.

Try to make your project creative. Do some experiments, it will make your project more alive and presentable.


Thanks,
Yasin

Hi Patty,

Welcome to the forum!

It sounds like you have a good basic grasp of the scientific method, but our project guide elaborates on the descriptions of the steps you have given, so it might clarify things for you:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ndex.shtml

If you aren't sure that you want to investigate paper towel absorbency, you could use our topic selection wizard or browse through our project guides:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... gister.php
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... deas.shtml

If you are sure you want to look at paper towel absorbency, I would recommend using a search engine to do background research on paper towels -- how they absorb water, what improvements manufacturers have made over the years, etc. A natural question to ask would be how much effect a certain feature (such as being "quilted", whatever exactly that means) or property (such as areal density [mass per unit area] or thickness) has on absorbency. But, you could come up with something different -- for example, you might read something that suggests water should be more easily absorbed than oil and want to investigate that. Based on your background research, you'll make an educated guess about what the outcome will be. Your procedure and materials depend on the question you are trying to answer, and this will probably flow pretty easily once you have a question defined. It's likely that you'll need liquid(s), paper towels, something to measure liquid volume, and something to measure relatively small masses accurately -- but possibly other things depending on your question.

Hope that helps,
Amanda

How do I do my experiment to measure the absorption of water comparing 3 different brands?

I do not know how much water to use or how to put it on the paper towels.

Please help.

Welcome to the forum!
If you read the previous posts by our Experts, it should definitely help to get you started on your own project. However, if you are still a bit unsure, go through the ScienceBuddies Project Guide and remember to keep variables such as water used as constant (so that you have a standard measurement that is used for each trial). Let us know how it goes, and feel free to ask any specific questions that you might have as you continue with your project. Best of luck!

How do I do my experiment to measure the absorption of water comparing 3 different brands?
I do not know how much water to use or how to put it on the paper towels.

I hate to answer a question with more questions, but what is your hypothesis?
Consider these possibilities:
1) one brand might be better at wiping up water from a hard waxy surface that water balls up on while another brand might be a better squeege on porous surfaces
2) one brand might be better at being wrung out and then re-absorbing more water than another brand.
I'm sure there are plenty of other possibilities as well.

You are going to have to design an experiment to test your specific hypothesis. In fact, you might have to reword your hypothesis to make it more specific and to match your experimental approach. If your hypothesis is too broad, you can have difficulty proving or disproving it without doing a lot of experiments to prove/disprove different possibilities.

-Craig