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Dr. Day recently tasked our eighth grade scientists with determining how many popcorn kernels AND how many pieces of popped popcorn it would take to fill the entire science lab. As you can imagine, this is no easy task. Broken into teams of two, students took measurements, worked through equations, and puzzled their way through this somewhat fantastic problem!
This experiment is a fun and exciting way for the students to learn the process of dimensional analysis to solve complicated problems involving changes in units and ratios between different measurements. They will utilize dimensional analysis more when they take on the challenge of understanding stoichiometry (ratios of elements, atoms and molecules in chemical reactions) in their chemistry unit this winter.
In order to accomplish their task, the teams first needed to take the measurements of the science room. Then, they needed to convert these into a metric measurement. Once they had calculated the volume of the room, they needed to take a measurement to get a ratio between volume and number of popcorn kernels. Finally, with some careful calculations they would have their answers!
Curious to know the outcome? Here are the classroom measurements that the students found: The lab space is roughly 25ft x 37ft x 12ft. Popcorn kernels occupy roughly ⅕ of 1 mL and popped popcorn measures about 7mL in volume. After careful problem solving, our eighth graders have calculated that it would take about 1,757,004,279 kernels or 43,172,105 pieces of popped popcorn to fill our brand new science lab!
