Keep the Heat in! Testing the Insulation Properties of Materials

Each group needs:

• cardboard (used paper or delivery boxes work great)
• scissors or box cutters
• ruler
• duct tape
• three different household materials that could be used as insulation (students bring materials from home)
• 60-100 W lightbulb
• lightbulb base (available at hardware stores)
• lamp cord (available at hardware stores)
• 2 thermometers
• 4 gallon-size Ziplock bags
• Engineering Notebook – via access to a shared document (such as Google Docs)
• Engineering Notebook Requirements and Rubric (PDF)