Calculating Air Density

Today in science class, we continued our discussion of density by calculating the density of air. Students were given a list of procedures and a set of materials. Among those materials included a bottle filled to the brim with water, a rubber valve, a rubber washer, and a hand pump to pull air out of the bottle.

Students were asked to remove the water from the bottle by using a graduated cylinder to measure the volume of the bottle. Once the bottle was emptied, students were asked to find the mass of the bottle, valve, and washer combined.

Once mass was measured, students then used the pump to pull as much air out of the bottle as possible, once majority of the air was removed from the bottle, students reweighed the bottle and calculated the mass of the air.

Lastly, we pulled all of our information together and calculated the density of air. As you can see from our table below, the density of air ranged from .0003 to .0012 centimeters squared.

On Tuesday we will finished our discussion about density, and begin to move forward and focus on heat.

Mr. McClung