Drops on a Coin - Investigation

Based on your work in part 1) Inquiry, carry out an investigation to determine how a particular factor
affects the number of drops on a coin.

Aim:
- To investigate on the number of drops on a coin on the factor of the concentration of the salt.

Hypothesis:
- I think a coin will hold more drops of water if I use less concentration of salt because the surface
tension of the coin is stronger without salt because salt particles dont attract water particles.

Investigation Variables:
What is your independent variable: Concentration of the salt.
What is your dependent variable: Number of drops on a coin.
What are your control variables: Same coin, Same type of tap water, Same temperature of the room,
Same side of a coin, same position of the coin.
(list at least 5)

Procedure: Write at least 3 bullet points describing how you would obtain your experimental data
1) Prepare two cups; one with just tap water, and other cup with tap water and salt. and fill it into
the dropper.
2) First, drop as many droplets onto a coin with a normal tap water and write down the result.
3) Second, drop as many droplets onto a coin with a salt water and record the result.
4) Repeat procedure 1) and 2) twice.
5) Compare the results.

Data analysis: Make a neat table to put your data into. Give it a title and label the columns and rows.
Show clearly any calculations made.

Type of the liquid\Trial No. Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3

Tap water 65 79 63
Salt tap water 61 61 67

Results: Draw a suitable graph to show your results. Make sure it has a title, labels on the axes and
units.
Technology challenge - what to graph (bar or scatter plot?) and how to insert your graph into this
document? A good option is to use a spreadsheet ie Excel, Google Sheet or equivalent. Another option is
to draw it on graph paper, take a picture and paste it in.

Interpretation: What does your graph show? Can you see a pattern in the data?
- My graph shows that tap water without salt holds more drops than the tap water with salt.

Conclusion: State what you found out. Based on the evidence of your results, do you now accept or
reject your hypothesis?
- I have found out that higher concentration of the salt will decrease the number of drops. Based
on this evidence, I do accept my hypothesis.

Discussion / Evaluation
Think about how control variables were used or monitored to ensure a Fair test
- It was a fair test because it only had one independent variable.
How did you get results that you can confidently base a conclusion on?
- I have run several tests and got the average of it.
What potential sources of error, that could not be controlled, made your results less accurate?
- Some of the potential errors were my hands because i couldnt drop every single drop same.
The investigation could be improved by trying more varied concentration of salts to get more data.