Educational Purposes

The goals of the project are to develop math and science skills and consumer awareness among elementary school students by predicting, experimenting, observing, measuring, comparing, graphing and analyzing data.

Project Developer:

Eleanor Sellers

E-mail address: jamese@mail.milwaukee.k12.wi.us

Curricular Area Addressed:

This project is designed to develop math and science skills science. Students follow steps used in scientific inquiry. Math measurement and graphing skills are used in gathering and recording data.

Grade Level

Developed for children in grades two to six, though older students may participate.

Summary of Project Plans:

Students will:

• predict which paper towels are most absorbent and which will be the "best buy" (tell why)
• set up and carry out absorbency experiment,
• measure the amount of water absorbed by same sized sheets of paper towels
• record and graph data
• analyze results
• submit data via e-mail
• compare local results with those of others in project.

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Interested in joining?

Send e-mail to

jamese@mail.milwaukee.k12.wi.us

Include the following information in the body of your e-mail:

• local project leader(s) name,
• school name and location,
• grade level and number of students participating.

Project Time Line

March 30 to April 24: Registration by e-mail

April 1 to May 1: Project registrations confirmed by e-mail

May 5,1998: Project results due.

May 8, 1998: Project results posted

If you are reading this now, you are too late to join our original project, but you can still use this activity, and I would still be happy to hear from you.

Specifics of Project

Materials Needed:

One roll each of Bounty Quilted, Kleenex Viva, and any other brand paper towel

Three plastic cups for each group collecting data

Measuring cups calibrated in milliliters

Containers of water with red, blue and green food coloring added.

Scissors

Ruler

Magic Marker

Procedures

• Gather materials, follow project procedures on your own to help you anticipate challenges faced by your students.
• Introduce project to children by talking about buying paper towels: How do we use paper towels? what makes one towel better than another? How could we decide which paper towel to buy?
• Bring project to attention of students and develop unit plans to address needs of project and your students. (Are your children familiar with milliliters, cups, absorbency, centimeters, doing liquid and linear measurement, and graphing?)
• Make your own decisions about having small groups or whole class do experiments.
• Print or copy data collection sheets found below.
• Use marker to put brand names on each sheet of toweling.
• Give each group a copy of data collection sheet number 1 (DCS1) and one sheet of each brand of paper towel.
• First, students examine and rate each brand of towel on DCS1.
• Second, students predict which towel will absorb the most, second most and least amount of water and write this down on DCS1.
• Next, students write price and square meters of toweling per roll in spaces provided on DCS1 and follow math steps described on DCS1 to find out how many 25 sq.... cm. sheets are on each roll and how much each sheet costs.
• Set up project materials in area for experiments to be conducted.
• Label, measure and cut each brand of sheet into 25 cm by 25 cm squares.
• Prepare colored water for each cup: Use red for the Viva cup, blue for the Bounty cup and green for the other cup.
• Pour exactly 100 milliliters of colored water into each of three cups.
• Place tape on cup where water level stops and write name of towel on each cup.(Tape marker helps show that water level does drop once water is absorbed in towels and removed.)
• Submerge each towel in corresponding cup for 5 minutes. Remove by lifting from beneath the towel with a fork or stick, let excess water drip off for 10 seconds
• Lay towels aside, measure the amount of water left in milliliters in each cup, subtract that number from 100 to find out how much was absorbed and write down results on DCS 2.
• Fill out the rest of DCS 2.
• Graphs could be made to compare cost per sheet for each brand, or to compare absorbency per sheet. You may wish to have students prepare such graphs and decide if they would be useful in making buying decisions. Groups should at least make a bar graph that compares cost per milliliter absorbed per sheet. of each towel. (Use data from DCS 2, question 2 to make this graph.)
• Use your data collection report form to submit results of your work by e-mail to:

jamese@mail.milwaukee.k12.wi.us