Method?

well..... apparently, i dont have a method up....... which is weird, seeing that i posted it in my second blog entry. -.-

but oh wells. i'll just post it again. but in report form! yeah!

This experiment was conducted at home, with no exposure to the sun, and at a moderate room temperature. In this experiment, four types of paper were used: 90 gsm (matt), 135 gsm (glossy), 135 gsm (matt), and 15 gsm tissue paper. All of the samples were 1cm by 4cm in size. Two liquids were used: water, and white vinegar. Two dishes of 90gsm paper were used, instead of one, and they were the control.

Each piece of paper was labelled and placed into a dish. One tablespoon of either water or vinegar was added to the dish, and submerged. The dishes were left to sit for 6 days. Photos were taken every 24 hours, and the samples were stirred.

To prevent foreign particles from contaminating the samples, cling wrap was placed over the dishes so nothing would fall in.

should i attach some photos?...... hmmm...... ok.

and yes, i am posting all this stuff in a weird order.... but hey, at least its up! :)

Observation/discussion....

So, i've done my experiment now...... these are my observations.

First Day

After 24 hours, the paper has not seemed to have changed. The purple highlighter applied to the samples in water however, had been absorbed into the water, unlike the pink in the vinegar. This was a result that I was not expecting, so I set up a mini-experiment to see whether it was the vinegar that was slowing the absorption of the highlighter, or the actual highlighter that was hard to absorb.

** I noticed that the purple highlighter mark on the paper in the water had been completely dissolved, while the pink highlighter on the vinegar samples were the same as before. I was not sure whether that was because I used different types of highlighters, or because the vinegar was actually keeping it on the paper, so I added one pink strip to water, and one purple strip to vinegar to see if the results were consistent.

Second Day

After a further 24 hours, not much had changed in my makeshift petri dishes, but upon closer inspection, I observed that there were shadows in the water of the glossy 135gsm sample, indicating that there were particles in the water. However, these particles were too small to be seen by my eye, and the only way I saw them was because of the shadow it cast. I examined the other samples to see if these particles were also present, and I found some in all of the 135gsm samples, both glossy and matt, and in both water and vinegar. There were no particles that I could see in the 90 gsm and tissue paper samples though, which I thought was unusual.

Third Day

At the end of the third day, there was still no noticeable change in the paper, although in all
of the samples, the particles could be found.

Fifth Day - 120 hours

Still no noticeable change; the sample with the most (at least, obvious) particles on its surface was the glossed 135 gsm in vinegar.

Sixth Day

Nothing has changed......

Day Seven

The paper samples still seem to be in one piece... However, the particles on the surface of the water could be found in greater numbers in all of the samples. The dishes with the most particles were the 135gsm ones, both glossy and matt.

So there. Now I just need to make this into a discussion. :S