NAME10/23/12

SciencePeriod 4

Purpose:

To demonstrate how the angle of sunlight affects intensity.

Hypothesis:

If we tilt the paper farther and more angled away from the paper, then the tilt will affect the intensity of the light.

Materials:

  • Protractor
  • Flashlight
  • Ruler
  • Books {11}
  • Colored pencils {green, blue, purple, orange, brown}
  • Tape
  • A piece of graph paper

Procedure:

  1. Make a stack of books to make it lead to 6 inches
  2. Lay the flashlight on top of the books and tape it.
  3. Take the graph paper and tape it on a separate book.
  4. Take your protractor and take your book and line it up at zero degrees
  5. Turn on flashlight
  6. Circle the most intense light with a green colored pencil.
  7. Repeat step 4, 4 more times, but at 10 degrees, 20 degrees, 30 degrees, and 40 degrees and also step six , but with a blue colored pencil, purple, orange, and brown.

Data Table:

Degree of Tilt / Green
0 Degrees / Blue
10 degrees / Purple
20 degrees / Orange
30 degrees / Brown
40 degrees
Number of Squares lit up / 97 / 129 / 153 / 180 / 201
Class Average / 54 / 79 / 105 / 143 / 337

Question/ Analysis

  1. The independent variable is the angle of the light shining onto the paper.
  2. The dependent variable is the size of the area on the graph paper that light was shown.
  3. We had to keep the book the same because since the angle of the light is our independent variable, this is oneof the things we can keep constant.
  4. Some constant were the same flashlight, and keep the flashlight in the same place.
  5. The outline changed because the more moved back, the more light expands into more boxes.
  6. The light expanded more because when the book moves back, the more light expands more, but it has dimmer light.
  7. This experiment models the way that the angle of sunlight reaching the earth determines the seasons because we tilted the book back like the tilt of the earth.
  8. The fist angle at zero degrees had the most intense light because it was closest to the flashlight.
  9. The last tilt at 40 degrees had the least amount of direct light because it had a lot of light but it was very dim.
  10. The cause for the seasons is the tilt of the earth on its axis.

Conclusion:

In this experiment, we demonstrated how the angle of sunlight affects intensity. My hypothesis, “If we tilt the paper farther and more angled away from the paper, then the tilt will affect the intensity of the light,” was proven. The more we tilted the paper back the intense light had faded away. When it was closer to the light the more intense light was there. For Example, when it was at 0 degrees, on the graph paper there was 97 squares covered with light. At the end at 40 degrees the light filled up to 201 squares! Now you see that the last angle was much greater then the first angle. During the experiment, we could of turned off the light to make it more like it was in outer space and to get more lively results. This experiment proves that the tilt of the earth does affect light intensity.