Global Warming Experiment

Research Question: How does the greenhouse effect and greenhouse gas affect planet earth?

Background Information: Global warming is the gradual increase in global temperatures caused by the emission of
gases that trap the sun's heat in the Earth's atmosphere. Gases that contribute to global warming include carbon
dioxide, methane, nitrous oxides, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), and halocarbons (the replacements for CFCs). The
carbon dioxide emissions are primarily caused by the use of fossil fuels for energy. These gases are called
greenhouse gases, which contribute as a blanket trapping the heat in, warming up the planet.

Hypothesis: the box covered with the black bag representing methane will have the greatest temperature as it is
known that black absorbs better than the other plastic bags.

Variables:
Controlled: Size of the boxes, time left in the sun, place left in the sun
Dependent: All of these changes will cause for the temperature inside the boxes to vary, either to increase or
decreased.
Independent: The type of plastic to cover, and the times the boxes were folded, and finally we changed it to
put it in foil.

Equipment:
Wood Sticks
Tape
Transparent plastic bag= representing CO 2.
Black plastic bag representing methane
White plastic bag representing water vapour.
Thermometer.

Method:
 Firstly wooden cubes were made with the sticks.
 Then they were held together with tape.
 Later, they were covered in the three different plastics.
 Afterwards, they were put in the sun for 20 minutes.
 Finally the temperature for each one was recorded.

Diagram:

Box
Thermometer
Results:
Initial Temp after 10 minutes after 20 min
(without double plastic)
transparent 30 33 36
black 30 34 39
white 30 33 37
(with double plastic)
transparent 30 35 43
black 30 38 46
white 30 36 44

Graph:

Conclusion: By a look at the results we can clearly see that the black coloured plastic was the one which increased
more the temperature inside it as it is known that black absorbs heat. The black plastic represents the methane which
is emitted by industries and cars, which is proven that it is the most harmful greenhouse gas as it increased the
temperature the most. This plastic made the inside temperature of the box to increase from 30C to 34C in ten
minutes.
The second which represented water vapour. As it is white and not transparent it trapped some of the heat which
entered it making it hotter from 30C to 33C in 10 minutes.
Similarly the transparent plastic was heated by the sun which represented CO 2 and it heated from 30C to 33C in 10
minutes. This doesn’t suggest that CO 2 and water vapour are equally harmful as a green house gas but this anomaly
was spotted and will be discussed later in the evaluation. This experiment was left for another 10 minutes and
similarly range of result were obtained.
 Evaluation:
The first flaw is that it shows which gas has the most harmful effect on earth, but it doesn’t say how and by how much
therefore it is based upon our judgement and what we know. A way of doing this is to actually measure the levels of
each gas in the atmosphere. This could be improved as the thickness of the plastic was different, to make them all the
same thickness and size to get more accurate results. They could also been left for longer to handle more data and
determine if this experiment is relative to the increasing temperature of the earth.