Coffee Lab Teacher Notes:

You can make this a fairly complex lab, with lots of alternatives for students, or you can have every student do the same experiment. You can also do this as a simple lab by having students put the probe into a cup of hot water (coffee) and collecting data as the coffee cools, or you can make it more complex by doing the following:

I want students to analyze how different types of coffee cups and/or various holders change how hot holding the cup would feel to a person holding the cup. (My wife takes two cups and keeps one inside the other. She feels that this keeps the cups from getting too hot, while using the corrugated sleeves do not work well for her)

You could bring in a ceramic coffee mug, a “hot” beverage paper cup, a styrofoam cup, or use both paper and styrofoam cups with the corrugated paper “insulator” sleeves. Or, you could get coffee cups from several different coffee sellers (Starbucks, White Hen,

Mac Donalds, Burger King, etc). You could also have students check to see if there is a difference between the different brands or generic cups that you can purchase in stores (i.e., are Solo cups better than Dixie better than Jewel brand generic?).

Students will investigate how well the different cups (or cups in sleeves) insulate their hands from the heat.

Supplies needed:

1. a way to heat the water;

2. either one kind of cup, or a variety of cups (with or without insulating sleeves,

depending on how varied you want to allow the investigation to become); and

3. CBL2’s and temperature probes for each group.

Each group (or you as the teacher) needs to decide which set up they will measure. They should set the CBL2 to read data between 15 and 30 minutes (another choice you can make or you can let them make). They need to tape the temperature probe to the side of the coffee cup set up, start the measurements, and pour in the hot water. While the probe is doing its thing, you can go over the homework due, or present some other material. Once the time frame is over, students should link the data into their calculator. Their assignment is to complete the written assessment/analysis and write their report.

The student page follows:

Answer the following questions:

Do you drink coffee or tea?

Do you drink hot chocolate?

How often have you tried to drink on e of these and found that the paper/Styrofoam cup you had became too hot to handle?

What did you do about this:

Wait until the drink cooled enough to the touch (only to find it was no longer a

“hot” drink .

Switch the cup from one hand to the other as you held it so it never became too

hot (hopefully without spilling any on your fingers}.

Put the cup into one of the paper insulating sleeves.

Put the cup inside another cup to insulate it.

Vowed to bring your own thermos in the future to avoid having to deal with the

problem ever again.

During today’s class, you are going to investigate which type of “hot” cups and/or sleeves do the best job of protecting your fingers. We will also use the data you collect to learn about a different group of mathematical equations.

You will need to decide in your groups which cup set up to use, and whether you will run the experiment for 20 or 30 minutes. Tape the temperature probe to the coffee cup, set up the CBL2 for a temperature reading every 10 seconds for 120 or 180 total readings, pour in the hot water (PLEASE be VERY careful not to burn yourself), and start the readings. When this is done, return to your seat and work on the warmup problems which will be on the overhead.