paper towel absorbency experiment research

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Paper Towel Experiment

Which is the most absorbent.

The Paper Towel Experiment is a project about which type of paper can absorb more water.

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In every store, big or small, there are numerous brands of paper towels available, each claiming to be the best, the most absorbent or the cheapest. How do we prove or disprove these claims? How do we work out which paper towels are truly great and which are almost entirely useless?

We have all seen advertisements where two brands of paper towels are compared by observing how quickly or thoroughly they suck up a mysterious blue liquid or by wiping up some muddy footprints from their kitchen floor.

This, as we know, is not very scientific - there are no figures, no proof and little truth.

Here we are going to show you how to conduct an experiment to test one of these claims: the absorbency of paper towels.

Some Facts About Kitchen Towel

• Paper towels were invented by Arthur Scott in Philadelphia, USA, in around 1900. From humble beginnings, paper kitchen towels have become a billion dollar industry.
• Paper towels are often made from post consumer recycled paper fiber, requiring fewer trees being cut down and using up to 50% less energy.

Performing the Paper Towel Experiment

“More expensive brands of paper towel are more absorbent.”

What You Will Need for the Paper Towel Experiment

• At least four brands of absorbent paper towel
• A stopwatch
• A graduated cylinder
• Fill the beaker up with exactly 200 ml of water
• Take a sheet of the first brand of towel.
• Fold and insert into the water. As you dip the towel into the water, start your stopwatch.
• After 20 seconds, remove the towel from the beaker and squeeze as much water as you can out of the towel in to the graduated cylinder using the funnel. Make a note of the volume extracted
• Repeat 5 times for each brand and note the results in your data table. You must make sure that each sheet is folded in exactly the same way for the experiment to be constant and correct.
• Write down the results for each brand in your notebook.

Work out an average for each result and write down in a table.

Plot all of your results onto a simple bar graph like the one below; you can do this on a computer or you can use graph paper and pencils.

This will allow you to show which brand of paper towel is the most absorbent and which is truly awful.

Problems and Further Experimentation

Of course, this is a very simple experiment and it does have some limitations; you are testing only one reason why people choose a certain brand.

Some brands might be excellent at soaking up spills but are very expensive. Maybe some brands are not as good at soaking up water but are better at soaking up other liquids like milk or cooking oil.

When a consumer buys paper towels, they are not just looking for absorbency. Price, softness, availability, number of sheets on a roll, and strength are all important factors when buying a roll of kitchen towel.

Perhaps you could design an experiment to rate the strength and softness, or try and calculate how much each towel costs per sheet.

Paper towel manufacturers spend millions of dollars every year but, with a few simple experiments, you can find out which brands truly are the best.

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Martyn Shuttleworth (Sep 21, 2008). Paper Towel Experiment. Retrieved May 15, 2024 from Explorable.com: https://explorable.com/paper-towel-experiment

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December 10, 2015

Folded or Flat Paper Towel: Which One Absorbs More Water?

A soggy project from Science Buddies

By Science Buddies

A little science can help you save an important resource you probably use every day: paper towels. Try this activity and see what simple trick can help you--and the environment! 

George Retseck

Key concepts Absorption Paper Water Molecules

Introduction We all know that washing hands throughout the day can help keep colds and flu at bay. So several times a day we lather up, scrub, rinse and then use a paper towel—then another one, maybe even three or four to dry them off. Because who wants wet hands?

But could there be a way to conserve some of that paper by getting a paper towel to go the extra mile, allowing you to dry your hands with just one single sheet? This activity just might help you find the answer.

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Background To understand how paper towels absorb water, we need to know a little about how they are made.

Paper towels are made of ground-up plant material. If you look through a microscope at a torn-up piece of paper (or look up some images on the Internet), you will see a web of tiny plant fibers. Magnifying your paper further will reveal that the fibers are made of long chains of linked sugar molecules, called cellulose. Water is attracted to cellulose and likes to be soaked up and stick to the cellulose in paper.

When you looked through your microscope, did you also see the spaces between the fibers? These empty spaces affect the absorbency of the paper: Water likes to stick together and fill these spaces as it follows the water attracted to the cellulose. More spaces allow more water to be absorbed. But what would happen if you add a tiny space between sheets of paper towels? Would the empty space between the sheets help to hold more water?

Five or more identical paper towels—preferably the type in public restrooms (In case you would like to test different types of paper towels, choose at least five identical towels of each type. Do not worry about wasting a few towels—this activity might help save paper in the long run!)

Place to hang a paper towel to drip

Kitchen scale, one-gram precision or better

Paper and pen or pencil (for recording weights)

A workspace that can get a little wet

Scissors to make towels smaller for small hands (optional)

Preparation

Assemble all of your materials at your workspace.

Unfold the first paper towel (if you have the prefolded type). Wet it thoroughly and hang it so all of the excess water drips out.

When the towel no longer drips, weigh it on a kitchen scale. You can heap up the towel on the scale rather than neatly folding it. Record the mass on a piece of paper.

Fold an identical paper towel in three (if it was not already prefolded) and fold it one more time so six layers of towel are on top of one another. Wet it thoroughly and hang it—still folded—so all of the excess water drips out. Do you think this folded paper towel holds more, less or just as much water as the unfolded paper towel?

When the folded towel stops dripping, weigh it on a kitchen scale. Do not unfold it; place it on the scale then read and record its mass. Does it weigh more, less or exactly the same as the wet unfolded paper towel? If there is a difference, why do you think the mass is different?

Now that you measured how much water the folded and unfolded paper towels can hold, and maybe found a difference, which do you think would dry your hands better?

Place a fresh, unfolded paper towel and an identical fresh paper towel folded in three in a dry spot on your workspace.

Wet your hands, shake them three times to remove most of the water and then dry them off with the unfolded paper towel. Do your hands feel completely dry, somewhat dry or still quite wet?

Repeat wetting and shaking your hands. Try to shake your hands in the same way you did the first time then dry them with the folded paper towel. How do your hands feel now? Do they feel dryer, wetter or just as dry as when you used the unfolded paper towel?

If your hands feel very dry with both the folded and unfolded paper towels, try again with half a paper towel, as follows: Cut a paper towel in half and dry your hands with an unfolded half-towel and with a folded half-towel. Do you feel a difference now?

How can your findings help you use fewer paper towels for the same job?

Extra: If you have more paper towels of the same type, repeat the tests; perform each step exactly the same way and notice the variations in the outcomes. Does the measured difference in mass vary a lot or just a bit? Is it always the folded or always the unfolded paper towel that weighs more? Do your hands always feel drier when using the folded or the unfolded paper towel ? Scientists repeat tests to verify the outcome. Scientists also like to have their studies repeated by a different researcher utilizing different instrumentation (such as the scale). If the independent tests reveal the same results, the test is called reproducible . Such repeated tests by other experimenters have more scientific value. Can you find a friend to help you make your tests reproducible?

Extra: If you have different types of paper towels available, repeat the tests with them. Do you expect similar results? What did you find after testing them all?

Extra : Test other paper products that are used to absorb liquids, such as kitchen paper towels, toilet paper, paper napkins or tissues. Do these absorb more water when folded than when used single-layered? Which type of paper product gains most by folding? Can you explain why?

Observations and results Did you measure a higher mass for the folded wet paper towel and did your hands feel drier when you used it? This is expected, as the tiny space between paper towel layers helps hold more water.

Paper is made of cellulose, which water molecules like to cling to. As a result, paper readily absorbs water. Paper towels are especially absorbent because their cellulose fibers have empty spaces—tiny air bubbles—between them. Water molecules, which like to stay together, follow the one another as they are absorbed by the cellulose and fill the empty spaces. Layering the paper towel creates more spaces for water to fill, which explains why your layered paper towel could hold more water and was more efficient at drying your hands.

The next time you reach for the paper towels, remember to fold! You might feel good knowing you just saved an extra paper towel from being used.

Cleanup Let your wet paper towels dry, then recycle them if possible.

This activity was inspired by the TEDx talk, " How to Use One Paper Towel ," by Joe Smith.

More to explore How Do Paper Towels Absorb Water? from A Moment of Science, Indiana Public Media How to Use One Paper Towel , from Joe Smith, TEDxConcordiaUPortland Paper Chromatography , from Flashbang Science Chromatography: Be a Color Detective , from Scientific American

This activity brought to you in partnership with Science Buddies

Paper Towel Facts and FAQ's

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It’s the moment every parent dreads – you’re going about your day when your child mentions that he or she has to do a science project. If you’re one of the lucky ones, your kid will let it slip a few days after it was assigned. But if you’re like most parents, you’ll find out about it the night before it’s due. Either way, we’ve got you covered with a few science fair project ideas to make sure your child scores a top grade (or at least stays out of summer school). Best of all, these science experiments for kids can be completed with common household items you most likely already have on hand.

Testing the Strength of Paper Towels

If you find yourself short on time, testing which paper towel brand is the strongest, makes for a simple yet fun paper towel science project.

Time Needed: 2 Hours

Materials Needed:

1 roll of Bounty paper towels 3 rolls of paper towels made by 3 separate brands. 1 large plastic tub 2 cups of water Notebook or journal Graph paper 125 quarters A partner

• Detach one towel from each roll of paper towels and label each one with the corresponding brand’s name.

• Have the partner hold one of the detached sheets over the plastic tub.

• Pour exactly ½ a cup of water onto the paper towel.

• Place the quarters (one at a time) onto the paper towel until it breaks.

• Record the results of which paper towel is the strongest.

• Repeat steps 1 through 5 for each brand of paper towels.
• Create a graph to illustrate the results.

Paper Towel Absorbency Experiment

If you liked the previous idea, but don’t have over thirty dollars in quarters laying around the house, your child can always test what brand of paper towel is most absorbent.

1 roll of Bounty paper towels 3 rolls of paper towels made by 3 separate brands. 1 cup of water An even wooden or plastic table Notebook or journal Graph paper

Under your supervision, have your child complete the following steps:

• Tear off one towel from each roll of paper towels and label each one with the corresponding brand’s name.

• Pour the water onto the table in four different sections. Each section should contain exactly ¼ of a cup of water. (Make sure to give yourself some room, sothe pools of water don’t overlap.)

• Place one paper towel over one pool of water.

• Wait ten seconds.
• Remove the paper towel, and record your findings of the paper towel absorbency in the notebook.
• Repeat steps 3 through 5 for each paper towel brand.
• Create a graph to illustrate the results of which paper towel absorbs the most water.

Seed Germination with Paper Towels

Supposing your child has a few days to complete the project, a seed germination experiment is relatively hassle-free, and usually goes over well with teachers and students alike. It’s a great paper towel science fair project because it only takes a few minutes to prepare. However, it does take a few days for the seeds to grow.

3 plastic cups Bounty paper towels (Bounty is highly absorbent, so results should be seen faster) 3 plastic (or regular) plates 1 gallon of distilled water Potting soil Journal or notebook 6 bean seeds (Bean seeds are pretty big, sprout quickly and are easy to work with) Graph paper

• Place the soil into the plastic cups.

• Plant a bean about ¼ inch deep in each cup containing the soil.

• Take three sheets of Bounty paper towels and fold each in half.

• Place each of the remaining seeds inside its own folded paper towel, then place each of the paper towels on its own plate.

• Water the paper towels and soil cups until wet (not soaking) and place all the seeds in a warm, dark room.

• Monitor the seeds daily and water the soil cups or wet the paper towels again when they start to dry out.

• Note which seeds germinated when, and chart your results on graph paper. Explain which process worked better, and which seeds produced the longest, thickest sprouts.

Paper Towels Color Bridge

Paper Towel Color BridgeHere’s an idea with lots of color and wow factor. Best of all, it’s fairly simple, quick and inexpensive.

3 clear plastic cups 2 cups of water Yellow food coloring Blue food coloring Spoon 1 roll of Bounty paper towels (Using Bounty will cut down on the time it takes to see results. The channels in the towels will dispense water faster than other brands.) Under your supervision, have your child complete the following steps:

• Fill two of the cups with 1 cup of water each.

• Add yellow food coloring to one and the blue to the other.

• Stir (remember to clean the spoon so you won't mix the colors).

• Arrange the cups so that the empty cup is in the middle.

• Tear off paper towels and roll them into tight tubes.

• Stick one end of each into one of the colored waters, and the other end into the empty middle cup.

• Observe the colored water as it travels up the paper towel.
• Document your findings.

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Paper Towel Absorbency Experiment

This post is part of the DIY Summer Camp Activities series. Find more fun things for kids of all ages there .

I coach a homeschool Science Olympiad team and one of the events is Experimental Design. For the event, students use various provided materials to design and conduct an experiment on a specific topic.

For one of our practice sessions last year, I gave them different brands of paper towel and asked them to conduct an experiment on absorbency.

The result – for me – was that I changed my brand of paper towel!! Yes, the results were that dramatic.

So the DIY summer camp activity will not only be educational and fun for your children but should also be beneficial for you!

Here is a step by step walkthrough of the experiment. You can use more water and more paper towels if you are using a bigger glass. Just adapt to make it work with the equipment you are using.

Get your children to come up with a hypothesis as to what they expect to happen and why eg. We believe brand A will be the most absorbent, brand B then next absorbent and brand C the least absorbent because …..

Materials needed

• 3 (or more) different brands of paper towels (Note how much they cost)
• graduated cylinder (if you don’t have one use a skinny glass and measure the water you pour in and what is left using a measuring jug)
• aluminum pie dish or a tray to prevent a mess 🙂

1. Gather needed materials

2. Lay all paper towels on top of each other and use scissors to trim so they are all the same size (this way you’re testing how the absorbency of the towels differs and size isn’t a variable). You will need 3 pieces of each brand.

3. Take 1 paper towel from brand A and roll lengthwise so its diameter can fit in the graduated cylinder

4. Fill the graduated cylinder with lukewarm tap water to a volume of 30ml. (Note: we use metric measurements as that is standard in the scientific community).

5. Put a rolled paper towel in the cylinder so 3cm of the towel is submerged in the water

6. Hold the towel in water for 10 seconds, then lift it up out of the cylinder and allow to drip into the cylinder for 5 seconds. (The purpose for doing this was to make sure the test showed what the paper towels were absorbing AND keeping in. After all, you don’t want towels that drip out everything you’ve just cleaned up!)

7. Either dispose of paper towel in a waste bin OR place in pie pan and throw them all away at once when you finish

8. Record the volume of water remaining in the cylinder and subtract from the original 30ml to see how much water the towel absorbed

9. Repeat steps 3-8 two more times with the same brand of paper towel.

10. Now take the next brand of paper towel and do steps 3 – 9.

Record your data as you do the experiment. Once you are finished, calculate the average amount of water left for the 3 trials of each brand of paper towel.

Draw a bar graph of the average of the tests for each brand of paper towel. It will look something like this:

The independent variable in this experiment is the brand of paper towel i.e. it is the one the tester is changing. The independent variable is always on the X-axis.

The average amount of water (over the 3 trials) left in the cylinder is the dependent variable and the bar should be drawn to this height.

Now that you have the data, and the graph, students can reach a conclusion. They need to decide if their hypothesis was supported by the data or not (NOTE: scientists never say their hypothesis was ‘true’ or ‘false’ but only whether the result of their experiment supported the hypothesis or not)

The Science Behind It

Paper towel is made of plant fibers. Capillary action in the fibers draws the water into the paper towels. If you have a microscope, put a piece of paper towel under it for your children to look at. The fibers are made up of tiny linked sugar molecules called cellulose. Cellulose attracts water. If you look at paper towel under a microscope you will also see that there are spaces between the fibers – and those will hold water too.

To take this one step further, take a look at how much each roll of paper towel cost and try to calculate the cost of one “test strip” for each. Relate the cost to how absorbent the brand was and that should help you select what to buy in the future.

And your children can see a practical use for science!

Don’t forget to take a look at other DIY Summer Camp ideas to do with your children.

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Lesson 1.3 - Designing an Absorbency Test

Lesson overview for teachers.

View the video below to see what you and your students will do in this lesson. 

Youtube ID: 3cTXYWvjU2s

Downloadables:   Lesson Plan (PDF)   |  Student Activity Sheet (PDF)   |   Teacher Background (PDF)   |   Connections to NGSS (PDF)

Students will plan and conduct an absorbency test on four different materials and be able to explain that when testing materials to learn about their properties, the materials need to be tested in the same way. Students will be able to explain that since the materials are made from different substances, they absorb different amounts of water.

Key Concepts

• Testing materials can help identify their properties.
• To compare a property of different materials, the materials all need to be tested in the same way.
• Materials are made from a different substances and absorb water to different extents.

NGSS Alignment

• NGSS 2-PS1-1:  Plan and conduct an investigation to describe and classify different kinds of materials by their observable properties.
• Students help design an absorbency test to see if they can observe a difference in the amount of water that different materials absorb.
• Students place the same size piece of paper, plastic, felt, and aluminum foil in water and observe the amount absorbed.
• Students watch an animation to help understand why some materials absorb water better than others.   
• Students apply what they learned to better understand why a towel and a sponge are good absorbers.

Download the Student Activity Sheet (PDF)  and distribute one per student when specified in the activity. The activity sheet will serve as the Evaluate component of the 5-E lesson plan.

Be sure students wear properly fitting goggles.

Materials for each group

• Centimeter ruler
• Plastic (15cm x 15cm square
• Felt (15cm x 15cm square)
• Copier paper (15cm x 15cm square)
• Aluminum foil (15cm x 15cm square)
• 4 small clear plastic cups

1. Lead a discussion to help students design an absorbency test.

Explain to students that one of the properties of a material they can test is whether or not the material absorbs water.

Note: Some students may not be familiar with the term “absorb” or “absorbency” so you can briefly define and explain the word.  Tell students that if a material is absorbent, water goes into it and tends to stay in, like water absorbed into a paper towel.

Have students brainstorm a short list of other absorbent materials and how they are used: Cloth towel to dry off after swimming, or a sponge for cleaning up spills, etc.

Explain that materials that do not absorb water are also useful like the rubber used for rain boots. Have students brainstorm a short list of other non-absorbent materials and how they are used: Umbrellas to stay dry in the rain, rubber or plastic beach balls or toys for the pool, etc.

Tell students that the class will design a test to see which materials absorb water and which do not.  

Remind students that when a scientist has a question, they try to set up an experiment that will help them answer the question. Let students know that they can be scientists and help the class come up with a good experiment to see whether or not a material absorbs water.

Ask students:

• How could we set up an experiment to see whether paper, plastic, felt, or aluminum foil absorbs water? Put each kind of material in water and observe what happens.
• Do you think we should try to use the same size piece of paper, plastic, felt, and aluminum foil? Use the same size piece of each material.
• Do you think we should put them in the same amount of water or different amounts? Put them in the same amount of water at the same time and observe.

2. Use wax paper and brown coffee filter to demonstrate the absorbency test that students will do. 

Materials for the demonstration

• Brown coffee filter
• Table spoon
• 2 plastic cups

Begin a discussion by telling students that scientists investigate, describe, and try to understand the things around us. For example, if scientists are studying a rock, they might start by describing the rock’s size, shape, and color. They would also try to find out how hard the rock is and whether it is rough or smooth and shiny or dull. All these words describing what the rock is like are called the “properties” or “characteristics” of the rock. To further illustrate this concept, show a shell, leaf, or pine cone and ask students to describe something special that they notice about the object. Using students’ responses, you can say, “Yes, a property of the shell is that it is pink, or a characteristic of the leaf is that its edges are jagged, or a property of the pine cone is that it has many sections”, etc.

• Cut a strip of wax paper and a strip of brown coffee filter (2 cm wide and 10 cm long).
• Pour 1 tablespoon of water into each of two clear plastic cups.
• Demonstrate holding one piece in each cup with only the bottom part of the strip touching the water.  Hold the pieces straight up for about 30 seconds.
• Take out the pieces and discuss your observations.  Show students how you can tell that the coffee filter absorbed water and the wax paper did not.

Give each student an Activity Sheet (PDF) . Students will record their observations and answer questions about the activity on the activity sheet.

Question to investigate:  Which material absorbs or does not absorb water: paper, plastic, felt, or aluminum foil?  

3. have students conduct an absorbency test on copier paper, felt, plastic, and aluminum foil..

• Plastic (15cm x 15cm square)

• Pour 1 tablespoon of water into four clear plastic cups.
• Cut your paper, felt, plastic, and aluminum into strips that are about 2 centimeters wide and 10 centimeters long.
• At the same time, you and your partner place one piece in each cup so that only the bottom part of each strip touches the water.
• Hold the pieces straight up for about 30 seconds.
• Take all the pieces out and look at them closely.

Expected results

The copier paper and felt absorb water but the plastic and aluminum foil do not.

Ask students

• Which materials seemed to absorb water and which did not? The copier paper and felt absorbed water. The plastic and aluminum foil did not absorb water.
• How could you tell which material absorbed water and which did not? When the paper and felt absorbed water they got darker where the water was and you could feel the water in them.
• Which absorbed more water, the paper or the felt? Felt

Note: Don’t try to measure the amount of water absorbed by either material because it is so small that students will not be able to measure it in milliliters.

4. Use an animation to explain why water absorbs into paper and felt but not into plastic or aluminum.

Show the animation  Absorbency Test .

Explain that water is made from tiny particles called water molecules. Water molecules are attracted to the paper and move into the tiny spaces between the fibers. The aluminum and plastic are made from material that water is not very attracted to. Also, the aluminum and plastic do not have spaces for the water to move into like felt and paper. Therefore, the aluminum and plastic do not absorb water.

5. Show photos of a sponge and a towel  and ask why they are absorbent.  

• What do the sponge and the towel have in common with the paper? The sponge has little holes that the water can travel through. The loops of the towel material also have lots of spaces for the water to travel.

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How Do Paper Towels Absorb Water?

By -->danit brown -->, posted february 28, 2017.

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Paper towels are made up of cellulose fibers, which also make up cotton, wood, and most other plants. These cellulose fibers are actually giant molecules that consist of many small molecules linked together.

Key To Absorption

The small molecules that combine to make up cellulose are sugar molecules; that's the key to the absorbency of paper towels.

Think how easily sugar dissolves in water. When you get a paper towel wet, the water molecules rush in and cling to the cellulose fibers. That's why paper towels are great at picking up spills.

Inedible Sugar

Although cellulose contains sugar molecules, that doesn't mean paper towels are edible. We humans don't have any of the enzymes necessary to split the cellulose molecule apart into the individual sugar molecules. That's why paper towels have no nutritional value for us.

Sources and Further Reading:

Bloomfield, Louis A. "How Things Work" at http://howthingswork.virginia.edu/. Accessed June 29, 2002.

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Lesson Plan 1: Paper Towel Testing

TECHNOLOGY LESSON ( circle one ):         Yes      No

DATE OF LESSON: Day 1 of the week long unit

LENGTH OF LESSON: 45 minutes

NAME OF COURSE: Science

SOURCE OF THE LESSON: GEMS Guide: Paper Towel Testing

TEKS ADDRESSED:

• 5.1A: demonstrate safe practices during field and laboratory investigations
• 5.1B make wise choices
• 5.2A plan and implement descriptive and simple experimental investigations including asking well-defined questions, formulating testable hypotheses, and selecting and using equipment
• 5.2B collect information by observing and measuring
• 5.2D communicate valid conclusions
• 5.3B draw inferences based on information related to promotional materials for products and services

CONCEPT STATEMENT: The Texas Essential Knowledge Skills are explicit when they state that students will “conduct field and laboratory investigations following home and school safety procedures and environmentally appropriate and ethical practices,” and “the student uses scientific methods during field and laboratory investigations.” The Benchmarks for Science Literacy state that math, science, and technology are integral parts of scientific literacy. Science involves students in determining reasons for occurrences by carefully observing and trying to fit those observations into a schema to construct meaning. It is also important for students to learn that doing the “same” investigation does not always yield the same results. One reason for this could be differences in procedures used by different groups of students during their investigations. This lesson will address inconsistencies in procedures and will attempt to show students that with careful attention to procedure, investigations will yield reliable, accurate results.

PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVES:

• Plan and implement simple experiments to determine which brand of paper towel is the “best buy.”
• Use tools like mass weights, droppers, measuring spoons, and graduated cylinders to calculate accurate measurements.
• Test claims of manufacturers to determine what brand of paper towel stands up to its promotional material.
• Communicate in writing and speech the conclusions they have draw and offer support for their conclusions.
• Paper towels (1 sheet from each of the four brands)
• Graduated cylinders (1-25 mL for each group of 4 students)
• Gram weights (1 set for each group of 4 students)
• Tray (1 for each group of 4 students)

SAFETY CONSIDERATIONS:

• Keep your work area straightened to avoid spills
• Be careful to clean up all spills especially if the spill is on the floor
• Walk during the lab to avoid slipping on wet floors
• Do not drink any of the water from the lab

SUPLEMENTARY MATERIALS, HANDOUTS: Handouts (Wet strength test/absorbency data capture sheet handouts for every student) Wet Strength     Absorbency

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How Do Paper Towels Absorb?

How to Build a Black Hole for a Science Fair Project

Unusual containers.

Looking at the way in which water is held inside a rigid, hard container such as a bowl or a cup, it can be baffling to try to figure out how a porous, soft object like a sponge, cloth or disposable paper towel, can absorb and hold water. A paper towel manages to hold water based on a different scientific principle than those that hold water in a cup, one that works because of the towel's supple shape and many tiny holes, which create surface tension.

Capillary Action

If you look closely at the surface of a paper towel, you'll see that it's full of tiny pores and holes, somewhat imitating a sponge. In fact, many super-absorbent towels are designed to be more sponge-like in their fibers and construction than cloth weaving, because by imitating the sponge's shape, the towel can have the same absorbent power.

These many tiny holes and gaps between the towel's fibers can hold water due to surface tension, also known as wicking action or capillary action. Capillary action is the small amount of elasticity that naturally occurs between molecules of water, holding them together.

Every little space in the surface of the paper towel has its own tiny "bubble" of surface tension. These bubbles are formed when the towel comes into contact with liquid because the liquid in each tiny space is kept separate from the liquid in other pores and pockets. This allows the bubbles of liquid to be held in place and even sucked upward because each pocket contains so little water that the intermolecular attraction is stronger than the gravitational pull on the liquid.

If you wring out a paper towel, the water will be expelled. This is because the act of squeezing the towel breaks the surface tension of the pockets be compressing the spaces, forcing the liquid molecules to flow together and become weighted down by gravity.

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About the Author

Lauren Vork has been a writer for 20 years, writing both fiction and nonfiction. Her work has appeared in "The Lovelorn" online magazine and thecvstore.net. Vork holds a bachelor's degree in music performance from St. Olaf College.

Photo Credits

Mets501, Wikimedia Commons

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Which paper towel is the most absorbent our 6th-graders found out.