Year 10 Science

Science by Doing Assignment

Life and Living
Date Due: Week 8
Kerrod Uebel
Mr. Johnstone

Experiment Title:

Effect of Exercise on Skin Temperature

Student Name: Kerrod Uebel

Class: 10B

Date: 29/02/07

Other Members of Group: Dion Tobi

Aim: To find out how exercise effects skin temperature over a varying amount of time and
describe how we got these results and link the results in with homeostasis.
Background Information: The skin is the largest organ in the human body. It protects the
body from the suns rays and also keeps your body temperature normal or stable (37 C). Skin
temperature depends on air temperature and time spent in a certain environment. Changes in
skin temperature can be caused by a number of factors such as weather factors, which include
the wind chill factor, and the humidity factor. The normal temperature of skin is about 33 C or
91 F. The flow of energy to and from the skin is what determines our sense of hot and cold.
Heat flows from higher to lower temperature, so the human skin will not drop below that of the
surrounding air, regardless of wind. If a person was to be in a warm room and her skin
temperature was cooler than the air, her skin temperature would rise. The opposite would
happen in a cold room and warm skin temperature the persons temperature would decrease.
Humans fight air temperature by becoming warm or cold. When warm, they sweat. When cold,
they get chills and shiver. These changes are caused by a thing called homeostasis.
Homeostasis can be defined as the process of keeping internal conditions constant by using
negative feedback gained from the organs. Homeostasis controls water levels, body
temperature and glucose levels, which is why it is relevant to this experiment. Homeostasis
effects our skin temperature because during exercise our muscles give off physical and heat
energy wich travels through our blood to the skin, where it makes the skin capillaries widen to
allow more blood in to release the heat and also makes the skin glands secrete sweat to
evaporate on the skin and basically cool our skin temperature downOn a trip during a windy
and a snowy day, a man recorded his skin and body temperature while climbing a mountain.
The skin temperature of his toe was about 15 C. At the same time, the temperature of his chest
was 32 C (due to larger flow of blood to the chest as it is closer to the core temperature,
where there is a considerably smaller blood flow to the feet and toes). This shows that different
parts of the body have different skin temperatures. Abanty Farzana 2001. For our
experiment we will be taking our core temperature from under our tongue to compare with our
skin temperature which we will be taking from under our arm and the top of our hand, as under
our arm there are more sweat glands meaning more sweat, which will hopefully better display
the effects of homeostasis on skin temperature.
Past Experiment
After 3 hours in a hot room (50C), skin temperature differentials amounted to only 2.5C
(= 35C to 37.5C), with an average core/surface gradient of ~1C. With normal clothing
in a room at 15-20 C, mean skin temperature is 32-35C."
Hypothesis: We think our skin temperature will rise by only a very small amount or stay the
same depending on the length of exercise (we do not have much time to work with) and the
time that it takes for homeostasis to begin working, and we expect that our core temperature
will remain the same due to prior knowledge that it takes a large amount of exercise or a large
amount of time spent in a certain environment to change the core temperature and if it does
change it will only be by a small amount. We are expecting that our temperature after 4 minutes

of exercise will be slightly higher than our temperature after 2 minutes of exercise but once
again this depends on the amount of time it takes for homeostasis to begin working.
Materials/Equipment: 4 thermometers (2 each)
2 normal school uniforms (1 each)
2 pens and pads (1 each)
Procedure/Method: 1. Write up a large information chart and graph.
2. Measure the air temperature, our resting skin temperature and our
resting core temperature before each run using a thermometer.
3. Do two attempts at running for 2 minutes in full school clothing, then
measure our skin temperature and core temperature after each attempt
using a thermometer.
4. Now do two attempts at running for 4 minutes in full school clothing,
then measure our skin temperature and core temperature after each
attempt using a thermometer.
5. Now put all the gathered information into the chart and interpret it into a
Graph and include averages.
6. Then look at the results and see if they support or disprove our
hypothesis.
Results/Obserations and Data: We will be presenting all of our results in a table and then
interpret the skin temperatures after exercise into a graph to compare the differences between
Dion and myself. The results are on the following page. The patterns or trends in our results
show that, as we expected, our core temperature remained at exactly 37C while our skin
temperature changed by only 1-2 degrees throughout the experiment. The independent
variables that we used during the experiment were the amount and intensity of exercise and the
air temperature (which we could not control). As expected, the difference between our skin
temperature after 2 minutes was almost exactly the same as our skin temperature after 4
minutes, but as was stated in our hypothesis, we did expect a our skin temperature to be slightly
higher after 4 minutes but in reality they were exactly the same, but this may have been due to
the lack of accuracy using a thermometer, the varied time of which we spent checking our
temperature or the time spent after exercise trying to find thermometers. But the most likely
reason for these results is that we were hotter at some point during the 4 minutes than we were
during the 2 minutes, but sometime after this point homeostasis began to take effect and
brought our temperatures back down to our temperature after 2 minutes. This also means that
homeostasis did not have time to have to begin to have a large enough effect on our skin
temperatures. This all means that, in all, our hypothesis was supported except for the afore
mentioned fact that there was no real difference between our skin temperature after 2 minutes
and after 4 minutes. The main sources of error in our experiment was that we could not control
the air temperature that could have made a difference between each attempt, a lack of time to
do the exercise resulting in little difference between 2 minutes of exercise and 4 minutes of
exercise, incorrect or flawed use of crude thermometers that did not give an accurate enough
measurement and measuring equipment was not readily available after each attempt. I am
reasonably confident in the conclusions of the experiment. There is some uncertainty associated
with the data due to the use of the thermometers and varying air temperature but I must assume
that they are reasonably accurate as they gave 37C for every core body temperature, which we
know is accurate due to prior knowledge of the fact. To reduce error, the design of the
experiment could be changed so that we are doing our exercise in a more controlled
environment for a much longer distance of time, we could have a much larger number and
array of test subjects of each sex so that we could create a much better average and identify

outliers, we would have much more reliable and easy to measure so as to gain more reliable
results and gain more in-depth conclusions. So. Form this we have learnt that it takes 3-4
minutes for homeostasis to take effect, 2-4 minutes is not enough time to create a large enough
difference in skin temperatures. So in conclusion, I can confidently say that skin temperature
does increase during a substantial amount of exercise.
By Kerrod Uebel.

Kerrod Uebel
Attempt 1
Skin Temperature
(resting) hand
Core Temperature
(resting) mouth
Skin Temperature
(exercise) hand
Core Temperature
(exercise) mouth
Air
Temperatu
re
Time
Taken

Dion Tobi
Attempt 1

Dion Tob
Attempt

35 C

35 C

35.5 C

35.5 C

37 C

37 C

37 C

37 C

37 C

37.5 C

37 C

36 C

37 C

37 C

37 C

37 C

30 C

30 C

30 C

30 C

2 minutes

2 minutes

2 minutes

2 minut

Kerrod Uebel
Attempt 1
Skin Temperature
(resting) hand
Core Temperature
(resting) mouth
Skin Temperature
(exercise) hand
Core Temperature
(exercise) mouth
Air
Temperatu
re
Time
Taken

Kerrod Uebel
Attempt 2

Kerrod Uebel
Attempt 2

Dion Tobi
Attempt 1

Dion Tobi
Attempt 2

35 C

35 C

36 C

36 C

37 C

37 C

37 C

37 C

37 C

37.5 C

37 C

36 C

37 C

37 C

37 C

37 C

25 C

25 C

25 C

25 C

4 minutes

4 minutes

4 minutes

4 minutes

Overall
Averages
Air temperature average: (25+30)2
: 27.5C
Kerrods average resting skin temperature: (35+35)2
: 35C
Kerrods average resting core temperature: (37+37)2
: 37C

Dions average resting skin temperature: (35.5+36)2

: 35.75C
Dions average resting core temperature: (37+37)2
: 37C
Kerrods average skin tmeprature after 2 mins exercise: (37+37.5)2
: 37.25C
Kerrods average core temperature after 2 mins exercise: (37+37)2
: 37C
Kerrods average skin temperature after 4 mins exercise: (37+37.5)2
: 37.25C
Kerrods average core temperature after 4mins exercise: (37+37)2
: 37C
Dions average skin temperature after 2 mins exercise: (37+36)2
: 36.5C
Dions average core temperature after 2 mins exercise: (37+37)2
: 37C
Dions average skin temperature after 4 mins exercise: (37+36)2
: 36.5C
Dions average core temperature after 4 mins exercise: (37+37)2
: 37C

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Document on the World Wide Web
No known author. 2006, Citing of References [Online]. URL:
http://www.flascience.org/art/iconmicroscope.jpg
Document on the World Wide Web
Farzana, Abanty. 2001, Citing of References [Online]. URL:
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/AbantyFarzana.shtml
Document on the World Wide Web
Nave, R. Unknown, Citing of References [Online]. URL:
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/heatreg.html
Document on the World Wide Web
Holladay, April. 2002, Citing of References [Online]. URL:
http://www.wonderquest.com/skin-temperature.htm

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all I would like to thank all of the web sites that gave me highly valuable
information that helped Dion and me throughout the experiment. Lastly, I would like to
thank Mr. Johnstone for helping us to better understand what it is we are trying to
achieve, providing us with equipment and giving us helpful tips that allowed us to get to
this point.
Note: I also have a hand written graph but I was unable to scan it onto this project.