7th Grade Science Fair
Regulating Animal Body Temperature: How effective is fat?
Maintaining homeostasis is essential for an animal’s survival. All living things maintain homeostasis, which is the internal conditions of an organism. Animals have many internal conditions to keep stable, including their body temperature. When winter comes around, animals get ready by eating extra and storing it as body fat. The purpose of this experiment is to test whether having body fat will help an animal keep warm.
Creating Your Hypothesis:
When creating a hypothesis, think about the blubber on a seal. Now think, how effective do you think blubber is for keeping an animal warm? Create your hypothesis based off what you think.
Materials
1. An empty Vaseline container or any empty container or bowl
2. A full Vaseline container, 13 oz is recommended (Amazon-> https://amzn.to/2J0RDPe)
3. 2 thermometers (some nice ones on Amazon --> https://amzn.to/2IXrocx)
Procedure
1. Stick a thermometer in the full Vaseline container and in empty bowl
2. In order to make sure the temperatures start off the same, let both containers sit in room temperature for about an hour
3. When the temperatures are the same, put both containers in the freezer for half an hour.
4. Take the Vaseline container and bowl out of the freezer. Compare the temperatures on both thermometers
Conclusion
Which thermometer read a warmer temperature, the one in the Vaseline or empty bowl? Which one read a lower temperature? Was your hypothesis proven correct or incorrect?
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