Pressure Lab Essay

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Marshmallows and Balloons Reveal a Change in Volume Due to Increasing and Decreasing Pressures Chemistry Period 1 20 February 2013 Chemistry- Per.1 20 February 2013 Marshmallows and Balloons Reveal a Change in Volume Due to Increasing and Decreasing Pressures INTRODUCTION Pressure can define the amount of volume in an object depending on how much is used, hence Boyle’s Law. Some scientists have tried to understand the different ways that gases work. Boyle is one of the scientists that experimented with gases; he states that whenever the pressure of a gas increases, the volume of the gas will decrease, and vise versa. Demonstrated in Mr. Squiddy’s demo, when the bottle was squeezed he would float down and when it was released he would float back up. Some might think that by squeezing the bottle, Mr. Squiddy would go up with the water however, he would go down due to the pipette being used. The pipette had a little air bubble at the top of it, when the bottle was squeezed the water filled into the pipette creating an increase in pressure and a subsequently decrease in volume causing Mr. Squiddy to sink. When released, the high pressure subsided and he floated back up. In the crushing cans demo the cans were heated up with a little water inside and set to boil until steam appeared. Once the can was hot enough it was quickly placed in a bowl of ice cold water and the can crushed itself. This occurred due to the pressure on the outside of the can being much greater than that of the inside. When the water inside the can evaporated the inside was left with the steam occupying the volume inside of it. Once the can was submerged all of the steam dissipated leaving the inside empty allowing the pressure on the outside to crush it in. The marshmallow and balloon lab were similar to these two demonstrations. The goal of the experiment was to see what would happen to
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