🧻 Paper towel soak test: the whole packet

🧻 Paper towel soak test · 1st–5th grade · 1 day of testing · free · 40 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 towel, then how many spoonfuls of water it holds will ________________, because _____________________________________________

What I think will happen, in my own words:

3 levels × 3 tries at each = 9 tries in all. If anything you keep the same changes, you won't know which change made the difference.

What I need

• 🧻 Paper towels: 3 kinds: label them A, B and C
• 🥄 Measuring spoons
• 🚰 Water from the tap
• 🍽️ Small plates or saucers, all the same: 1
• 🖍️ Crayons or markers
• ✂️ Kid scissors
• 📏 A ruler

Be safe: 💧 Water · 🧽 A bit messy

1. Write A, B and C on three sheets so you know which kind is which.
2. Cut a square 15 cm across from each kind.
3. Lay square A flat on a plate.
4. Drip water on it one teaspoon at a time, counting as you go.
5. Stop when water runs off onto the plate, and write the count down.
6. Do it two more times with new squares of A.
7. Do three tests with B and three with C.
8. Draw a bar for each kind. Which one soaked up the most?

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

I changed: Paper towel   I measured: how many spoonfuls of water it holds (teaspoons)

MY GRAPH (a bar graph: paper towel along the bottom, teaspoons 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 each kind single and folded in half, and work out how much water each layer holds.

1. What made you want to ask this question? Say something like: I wanted to know: which paper towel soaks up the most water?
2. What did you think would happen, and why? Say something like: I thought changing the kind of paper towel would change how many spoonfuls of water it holds, and I wrote down why.
3. What did you change, and what did you measure? Say something like: I changed the kind of paper towel (Kind A, Kind B, Kind C) and measured how many spoonfuls of water it holds in teaspoons.
4. What did you keep the same, and why does that matter? Say something like: I kept the same size of square and the same spoon the same, so only the kind of paper towel was different.
5. How many times did you test it? Say something like: 3 times at each of my 3 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: Kind A and Kind C 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 each kind single and folded in half, and work out how much water each layer holds.