Fat is Not an Insulator
The project provides students with a challenge to test another material that would
act as an insulator with hot and cold.
Curriculum/State Standards
NJCCCS: 5.1.4.B.1,5.1.4.B.4, 5.3.2B.1,
5.3.12.A.3,5.3.12.B.2
Overview
Students compare insulation value of fat
in hot and cold environments, compared
to air (control), and any student selected
insulator. Students write up a formal lab
report with necessary scientific citings
that supports or refutes their experimental
data.
Objectives
The student will investigate the change in
temperature of an insulation material (fat)
and determine why it is a good insulator/
bad insulator and investigate why fat is a
bad insulator using scientific papers.
Materials
large and small test-tubes, oil (fat), ice
buckets, boiling water bucket, electronic
thermometers with instantaneous readouts, 2 hot plates
cell or cell inclusion. Experiments are to
test whether the bi-lipid membrane can
also have other functions (like act as an
insulator).
11-12
GRADE LEVEL
Culminating Activity
After performing the experiment,
students writing up the formal report will
come to the conclusion that fat in itself
is NOT an insulator, and after discovering
this, synthesis in the write up should
come to the conclusion that it is the
break-down of fat that can leads to a byproduct of heat.
Evaluation Method
Students research the difference between
a physical insulator and a source of
energy that can be broken down for
ATP to run the cell AND provide heat for
homeotherms or poikilotherms.
Readiness Activity
Students study the cell membrane
and discover it is made up of a bi-lipid
membrane. Students note the essential
purpose of the membrane, its significant
cost to build the membrane (in terms of
ATP), and investigate if this membrane
can act as an insulator for the cell.
Strategies/Activities
Note cell structure and the need for: 1.)
cell membrane, and for eukaryotic cells,
2.) cell inclusions that have a bi-lipid
membrane. Stress that these structures
are primarily used to isolated function and
regulate what goes into and out of the
THIS WINNING PROJECT IDEA SUBMITTED BY:
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Steve F. Levin
Nottingham North High School
Hamilton, NJ
2
PERIODS
$500
TOTAL BUDGET