Extra: If you have more paper towels of the same type, repeat the tests perform each step exactly the same way and notice the variations in the outcomes.How can your findings help you use fewer paper towels for the same job?.If your hands feel very dry with both the folded and unfolded paper towels, try again with half a paper towel, as follows: Cut a paper towel in half and dry your hands with an unfolded half-towel and with a folded half-towel.How do your hands feel now? Do they feel dryer, wetter or just as dry as when you used the unfolded paper towel? Try to shake your hands in the same way you did the first time then dry them with the folded paper towel. Repeat wetting and shaking your hands.Do your hands feel completely dry, somewhat dry or still quite wet? Wet your hands, shake them three times to remove most of the water and then dry them off with the unfolded paper towel.Place a fresh, unfolded paper towel and an identical fresh paper towel folded in three in a dry spot on your workspace.Now that you measured how much water the folded and unfolded paper towels can hold, and maybe found a difference, which do you think would dry your hands better?.Does it weigh more, less or exactly the same as the wet unfolded paper towel? If there is a difference, why do you think the mass is different? Do not unfold it place it on the scale then read and record its mass. When the folded towel stops dripping, weigh it on a kitchen scale.Do you think this folded paper towel holds more, less or just as much water as the unfolded paper towel? Wet it thoroughly and hang it-still folded-so all of the excess water drips out. Fold an identical paper towel in three (if it was not already prefolded) and fold it one more time so six layers of towel are on top of one another.You can heap up the towel on the scale rather than neatly folding it. When the towel no longer drips, weigh it on a kitchen scale.Wet it thoroughly and hang it so all of the excess water drips out. Unfold the first paper towel (if you have the prefolded type).Assemble all of your materials at your workspace.Scissors to make towels smaller for small hands (optional).Paper and pen or pencil (for recording weights). ![]() Kitchen scale, one-gram precision or better.Do not worry about wasting a few towels-this activity might help save paper in the long run!) Five or more identical paper towels-preferably the type in public restrooms (In case you would like to test different types of paper towels, choose at least five identical towels of each type.But what would happen if you add a tiny space between sheets of paper towels? Would the empty space between the sheets help to hold more water? More spaces allow more water to be absorbed. When you looked through your microscope, did you also see the spaces between the fibers? These empty spaces affect the absorbency of the paper: Water likes to stick together and fill these spaces as it follows the water attracted to the cellulose. ![]() Water is attracted to cellulose and likes to be soaked up and stick to the cellulose in paper. Magnifying your paper further will reveal that the fibers are made of long chains of linked sugar molecules, called cellulose. If you look through a microscope at a torn-up piece of paper (or look up some images on the Internet), you will see a web of tiny plant fibers. ![]() Paper towels are made of ground-up plant material. To understand how paper towels absorb water, we need to know a little about how they are made. Because who wants wet hands?īut could there be a way to conserve some of that paper by getting a paper towel to go the extra mile, allowing you to dry your hands with just one single sheet? This activity just might help you find the answer. So several times a day we lather up, scrub, rinse and then use a paper towel-then another one, maybe even three or four to dry them off. We all know that washing hands throughout the day can help keep colds and flu at bay.
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