Activity 4

Today we did an activity on how the sun effects the temperature of dirt, sand, and water. We had six bottles, two with dirt, two with sand, and two with water. One of each dirt, sand, and water bottle had paint on the top to slow down the effect of the sun getting through the bottle. A lamp was put over the bottles for 20 minutes and the temperature was taken. The end result was that the bottles without the paint had a higher temperature then the bottles with the paint. Out of the bottles without the paint the sand had the highest temperature, then the water, and last the dirt with the lowest temperature. This relates to my topic because tropical cyclones when it's hot at the water evaporates from the sun hitting the water and it creates a tropical cyclone. I thought, before we did this activity, that the dirt would have the highest temperature and the water the lowest because the dirt is dark so it would absorb more light and the water would reflect more. After the activity it made sense that the sand would have the highest temperature because it's packed together more so it can hold in more heat, rather than heat which is just loose together so heat can escape.

I got my information from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_cyclone