During the week of 16th October, Ladbrooke held an Investigative Science Week. In Year 4 our investigation was trying to find the best material to use as a mop, as Mrs Dowdall had found that when she mopped the floor, it remained very wet for a while afterwards. So we decided we needed to find the most absorbant material to do the job.
The class split into 5 groups and designed an experiment which we hoped would help us to find an answer. Each group had 5 or six strips of different materials to try. We attached strips of the material to a laminated grid. This was to make reading our results easier. We added food colouring to a tray of water, so that we could easily see which material had absorbed the most amount of water. Materials that we tested included; j-cloth, corduroy, bubble wrap,knitted cotton dishcloth, wadding, ribbon, plastic packaging and sponge.
Once each table had their results, we put them into a chart and then created a graph using Excel. We talked about the best format to use and put the data into a pie chart, bar chart, line graph and donut. Most of us decided that a bar chart was the best format to use, although one group chose a donut chart.
Someof the results did surprise us and we didn't get a cler winner overall, although we did have fun testing the materials as the photogrpahs below show.
{besps}classes/y4/sweek{/besps}