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Middle School Science Fair Project On Candles
Science Fair Project: Do Colored Candles Burn Faster than White?
This science fair is perfect for both junior high students and high school students. High school students can take this experiment a step further, while middle school students can easily do the project as described. This is a very good middle school science fair project. Remember to get your parents’ permission before lighting candles, and make sure they supervise you with a fire extinguisher nearby.
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The only equipment you will need for this middle school science fair project (also suitable for high school students) is: a stopwatch, a ruler, a black marker, candles of different colors, and a lighter. When selecting your candles, make sure that they are from the same brand, because different candles are made up of different types of waxes and have different dyes and wicks which may cause them to have different burning times.
Before starting this middle school science fair project you need to think of a hypothesis? A hypothesis is an educated guess on what you think is going to happen. For this experiment you are going to guess which color of candle is going to burn the fastest. Will the blue candle burn the fastest because it is a dark color? Or maybe you think the white candle will burn the fastest? Write down your hypothesis in your science fair notebook.
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Measuring from the top of the wax, mark a solid black line two inches down from the top. This is the mark at which you will stop the stopwatch when you can’t see it anymore. Repeat this on all your different colors of candles, and place them securely in a candle holder.
Light all of the candles at the same time and start the stopwatch. Wait until the candles have finished burning through the black line. Record the time it takes to reach this point for all the different colored candles. What are the results?
You should've found that if you thought the blue candle or the white candle was going to burn the fastest as it was the darkest or the lightest, that your hypothesis was wrong. In fact, the yellow candle was the one that burned the fastest. In your science fair report, you may want to record why this happened and about how heat reflects off the surface and helps the yellow candle to melt the quickest. You may also want to talk about heat reflection, colors, and why the yellow candle burned the fastest.
For high school students, you can make this project a bit more inclusive by weighing the candles after the waxes dry, and finding out which candle lost the most weight after being burned two inches. Are they all the same? Do some candles retain more wax? Do the dyes affect anything? Colors are amazing substances, and you wouldn't think that different colored candles would make that big of a difference when burning them, but it does.
Enjoy this middle school science fair project.
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