Worksheet
Hot Bottles and Melting Snow for a Snow-Camping Trip
Grade 6 investigation: sleeping-bag warmers cooling overnight and ice melting in warm water show how mass, type of matter and energy transferred change temperature.
Grade 6ScienceInteractive · Printable
Aligned toMS-PS3-4
What’s included
- Single worksheet
- Auto-graded online
- 1 NGSS standard
- Printable answer key
- 11 questions
- Classroom-ready
Details
- Format
- Interactive · Printable
- Grade
- Grade 6
- Subject
- Science
- Question types
- Fill in the blank, Multiple choice, Circle the answer, Short answer
About this worksheet
What students practice
- Students use cooling data to compare how mass and type of matter affect a change in temperature.
- Students explain why melting ice takes in more energy than the same mass of ice-cold water.
- Students argue from data that a bigger temperature change does not always mean more energy transferred.
How to use
Read paragraph 2 aloud and have students name what was changed and kept the same in each test. Let them work the ice trials in pairs, then write the open response alone.
Curriculum
NGSS standard covered
Investigate how the energy transferred, the type of matter and its mass affect a change in temperature.
Preview
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Hot Bottles and Melting Snow for a Snow-Camping Trip
Investigate how mass, type of matter and energy transferred change temperature.
Part 1: The sleeping-bag warmer test
Read the passage and Table 1. Use them to answer questions 1–5.
Getting Ready for a Night on the Snow
1In February, Rosalind Tanaka and her family will spend two nights in tents at a state park, with snow on the ground and nights well below freezing. Her aunt, Ilse Moreau, has snow camped for years. She told Rosalind that many campers fill a bottle with hot water at bedtime and tuck it into the foot of the sleeping bag. Rosalind wondered whether a bottle of water was really the best choice, or whether a bag of sand or a smooth stone heated by the fire would work as well.
2Before the trip, Rosalind tested four warmers in her family's unheated shed, where the air stayed close to 0 °C all night. She used a 1 kg bottle of water, a 0.5 kg bottle of water, a 1 kg cloth bag of dry sand and a 1 kg stone. Her aunt warmed each one to 60 °C, filling the bottles with hot water and heating the sand bag and the stone in a low oven. Rosalind placed each warmer in the middle of an identical rolled-up sleeping bag, with a thermometer probe touching it, and read the temperatures every hour for 4 hours.
3Aunt Ilse also told her that melting snow for drinking water uses a lot of stove fuel. Back at school, Rosalind asked her science teacher whether ice really takes more energy than cold water. They set up foam cups with lids, each holding warm water at 40 °C. Into each cup they dropped either ice cubes or ice water, both at 0 °C, and stirred until all the ice had melted. Then they read the final temperature. Each trial was done twice, and the two results were averaged.
| Hours | 1 kg water (°C) | 0.5 kg water (°C) | 1 kg sand (°C) | 1 kg stone (°C) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 60 | 60 | 60 | 60 |
| 1 | 52 | 50 | 38 | 40 |
| 2 | 45 | 42 | 25 | 27 |
| 3 | 39 | 35 | 16 | 18 |
| 4 | 34 | 29 | 10 | 12 |
During the 4 hours, the 1 kg bottle of water cooled by °C.
- A. The sand started with less thermal energy, since it was cooler than the water at the start.
- B. For about the same energy given off, the temperature of sand drops more than that of water.
- C. The sand passed its cold to the sleeping bag, which made the sand cool off even faster.
- D. The water's sleeping bag made extra thermal energy, which kept the water from cooling.
- A. You're right: the warmer that drops by more degrees is the one that gave off more energy.
- B. Not quite: they gave off the same energy, because both bottles started at 60 °C.
- C. Not quite: the big bottle has twice the water and cooled almost as much, so it likely gave off more.
- D. Not quite: the big bottle gave off less, because it was still the warmer of the two at 4 hours.
At 4 hours, the 1 kg water bottle was °C warmer than the 1 kg stone.
1 kg water and 1 kg sand after 1 hour1 kg water and 0.5 kg water after 4 hours1 kg water and 1 kg stone after 2 hours0.5 kg water and 1 kg sand after 3 hours1 kg sand at 0 hours and at 4 hours
Part 2: Ice in warm water
Use paragraph 3 and Table 2 to answer questions 6–11.
| Trial | Warm water (g) | What was added | Final temp (°C) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 200 | 20 g of ice | 29 |
| 2 | 200 | 40 g of ice | 20 |
| 3 | 200 | 60 g of ice | 12 |
| 4 | 200 | 20 g of ice water | 36 |
| 5 | 400 | 40 g of ice | 29 |
In Trial 2, the warm water cooled by °C.
- A. More ice took in more energy from the warm water, so the final temperature was lower.
- B. More ice gave more cold to the warm water, so the final temperature dropped further.
- C. The final temperature stayed about the same, since the warm water started at 40 °C each time.
- D. More ice spread the water's energy thinner, so energy was lost and the water cooled.
- A. The ice cubes were colder than the ice water, even though both of them read 0 °C.
- B. The ice had more mass than the ice water, so it took in more of the energy.
- C. The ice water held less cold, since some of its cold had already melted away.
- D. Melting took in energy from the warm water before the meltwater began to warm.
- A. Trial 5 had twice the warm water to give energy and twice the ice to take it in.
- B. The extra warm water in Trial 5 kept its ice from melting, so no extra energy moved.
- C. Both trials used warm water at 40 °C, and that starting temperature set the final temperature.
- D. Both trials had the same mass of ice, so the ice took in the same energy each time.
The final temperature would be about °C.
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