Chem Accel
Finding the Relationship
Your task today is to practice measuring masses and volumes and then to determine the relationship
between these two variables. The objects that we will be measuring are boiling chips. Boiling chips are
small chunks of calcium carbonate that are added to liquids that need to be boiled in a laboratory setting.
The boiling chips are uneven in size and provide multiple nucleation sites on their surface. The result of
adding the boiling chips to a liquid is that the liquid will boil more evenly and is much less likely to boil with
large bubbles that could splatter and severely impact the validity of experimental data and personal
safety.
Materials
Graduated cylinder
Boiling chips
Procedure
1. Separate your sample of boiling chips into five small piles. Each pile needs to have at least 5 boiling
chips. It is also important that no two piles contain the same number of boiling chips. It is not
necessary to record the number of chips in each pile.
2. Obtain a mass for each pile of boiling chips and record in the data table.
3. Obtain a volume for each pile of boiling chips using the water displacement method and a
graduated cylinder. Record the volume in the data table.
Pile Number Total mass of the chips in this
pile
Total volume of the chips in this
pile
1
2
3
4
5
Graphing the Results
Our final task is to graph our results and determine the relationship between the mass of the boiling chips
and their volume. This can either be accomplished by using paper and a pencil or with a graphing
calculator.
Procedure for Making a Graph
1. On our graph, the X axis will be the independent variable, which is the volume of the boiling chips.
The Y axis will be the mass of the chips.
2. Once the data has been graphed, determine the equation for the line of best fit between the data
points.
3. Determine the slope of the line and express with the correct units.
Questions
1. What does the slope of the line on your graph represent? What are the units for this line?
2. If you had used double the number of piles for your graph, how would this affect the results?
3. What was the reason we used multiple chips in each pile instead of just one chip per pile?
