First Place Science Fair Winner!!

Jenna won first place in the fourth grade Science Fair!! Way to go, Jenna! It was a simple project, but even simple projects take several hours of work! 

A couple of months ago Jenna said that she was worried that she hadn't yet participated in enough extra curricular events to get the Arrowhead Medallion at the end of the year. I suggested that she do the Geography Challenge and so she did. It involved many many hours of studying -- and she did awesome!! She also wanted to do the Science Fair. To be honest, I wasn't thrilled about helping with another Science Fair project. (Do a search on this blog under "Science Fair" and you will see just how many Science Fair projects I have helped with through the years!)

Jenna suggested doing something with candles and I thought that was a great idea! At first she was going to compare different brands of candles to see which ones would last the longest. But we decided that it would contain too many variables and so we decided to use just one package with different colors to see how the white compared with the colored candles. Jenna thought that the white would burn the fastest, but it actually burned the slowest of the four colors. So that turned out to be an interesting experiment.

We then decided to go a different route and test to see if putting the candles in the freezer would help them burn longer. Jenna guessed that that they would -- and they did!! I told her that she could choose either of those experiments for her board and she wanted to do the one that involved putting the candles in the freezer (I think she just wanted her hypothesis to be correct, ha ha!)

Question:

Will a candle burn longer if it has been put in the freezer?    

Hypothesis:  

I think that birthday candles that have been put in the freezer will burn longer than birthday candles at room temperature.

Procedure:  

I will take 16 candles (4 different colors) and measure each one with a line one inch from the top. I will put 8 in the freezer overnight (2 for each color) and leave 8 out at room temperature (2 for each color). I will then light two of the same color and temperature candles  and time them with a stopwatch to see how fast they burn down to the line. I will take an average of the two times and compare the candles at room temperature with the candles that were put in the freezer to see which burn the longest.   

Data/Observations: 

I noticed that the colored candles burned faster than the white candles. All of the candles from the freezer burned longer than the candles that were at room temperature.

 Results:

These are the times it took for the candles to burn down to the line in minutes and seconds.  

Room Temperature                          Freezer

Blue: 3.80                                           Blue: 4.75

Pink: 3.57                                          Pink:  4.30

Yellow: 3.18                                     Yellow: 4.40

White: 4.30                                     White: 4.50

Conclusion:

My hypothesis was correct. The candles from the freezer took longer to burn down to the line than the candles at room temperature. I think this happens because the freezer makes them cold and stiff and so they melt slower than candles at room temperature.

Summary:

I wanted to see if candles put in the freezer would take longer to burn than candles at room temperature. I marked 16 candles with a line and left half on the counter and put half in the freezer. My hypothesis was correct. The candles in the freezer took longer to burn. This is helpful to know because we can freeze our birthday candles right before using them so that they don’t get wax all over our cake and burn down before getting a chance to blow them out!

 Bibliography:

https://www.thriftyfun.com/Freezing-Candles-Before-Use-4.html

https://www.bobvila.com/articles/how-to-make-a-candle-last-longer/