📄 Paper layers and flashlight light: the whole packet

📄 Paper layers and flashlight light · 2nd–6th grade · 1 day of testing · free · 45 minutes a sitting

My days, if the fair is 14 days away

Count back from your fair day and write in each date. Fewer days than this? The jobs share days, in this order; nothing is skipped.

Dates from my teacher

• My question is due
• Testing starts
• My results table and graph are due
• My board is due

In this packet

1. 🗓️ My project plan
2. 💭 My hypothesis
3. 🧺 Change, measure, keep the same
4. 🪜 My steps
5. 📊 My results
6. 📓 My logbook
7. ✅ My conclusion
8. ✂️ Board titles to cut out
9. 🏅 The judge's questions and my certificate

If I change the kind of paper, then how many layers it takes before the light on the wall is gone will ________________, because _____________________________________________

What I think will happen, in my own words:

4 levels × 3 tries at each = 12 tries in all. If anything you keep the same changes, you won't know which change made the difference.

What I need

• 🔦 A flashlight
• 🧻 Tissue paper
• 📜 Wax paper
• 📄 Paper: printer paper
• 🟨 Construction paper: black, white, red, blue and yellow: one colour, such as blue
• 📏 A tape measure, or a long ruler
• ✂️ Kid scissors
• 📏 A ruler

Be safe: 🙅 Never at faces

1. Cut ten squares, about 8 cm wide, from each of the four kinds of paper.
2. Lay the flashlight on a table 30 cm from a bare wall, pointing at the wall.
3. Make the room dim and switch the flashlight on: you will see a bright spot on the wall.
4. Hold one tissue square flat on the flashlight's glass and look at the spot on the wall.
5. Add squares one at a time until the spot is gone, and stop at ten if it is still there.
6. Write how many layers it took in your table under Try 1.
7. Do the tissue paper two more times, and write each number down.
8. Do three tries with wax paper, then printer paper, then construction paper.
9. Find the middle number for each kind of paper and draw a bar graph.

Write each number in your results table the moment you measure it.

I changed: Kind of paper   I measured: how many layers it takes before the light on the wall is gone (layers)

MY GRAPH (a bar graph: kind of paper along the bottom, layers up the side)

What I noticed: ______________________________________________

Write something every day you work on it, even the days you only gather things. More days? The three-page logbook prints from peabody.kids/science-fair/templates/logbook.

My hypothesis was ☐ right ☐ partly right ☐ not right.

I know because my numbers show:

What surprised me, or what might have gone wrong (7th and up):

Next time I would test:

Idea: Change a second thing: test construction paper in black, white and yellow, and graph the layers each colour needs.

1. What made you want to ask this question? Say something like: I wanted to know: how many paper layers block a flashlight?
2. What did you think would happen, and why? Say something like: I thought changing the kind of paper would change how many layers it takes before the light on the wall is gone, and I wrote down why.
3. What did you change, and what did you measure? Say something like: I changed the kind of paper (Tissue paper, Wax paper, Printer paper, Construction paper) and measured how many layers it takes before the light on the wall is gone in layers.
4. What did you keep the same, and why does that matter? Say something like: I kept squares of paper cut to the same size and adding one layer at a time the same, so only the kind of paper was different.
5. How many times did you test it? Say something like: 3 times at each of my 4 levels, and I found the middle number.
6. What did you find out? Show me in your numbers. Say something like: Look at my table: Tissue paper and Construction paper gave different numbers, and here's the pattern.
7. Was your hypothesis right? How do you know? Say something like: My numbers show whether I was right, partly right or not, and I can show you where.
8. Did anything go wrong, or surprise you? Say something like: One try was odd, so I did it again and wrote it in my logbook.
9. If you did it again, what would you change or test next? Say something like: I'd change a second thing: test construction paper in black, white and yellow, and graph the layers each colour needs.