Seventh grade students in Mrs. Kristen Foley’s class debunked a birthday candle company’s marketing claim using a hands-on experiment. While the company claims their product will burn for a full 25 minutes, the students found the candles burned for 15 minutes at most.
Before lighting a single wick, students had to make predictions on how long they thought the candles would last. This required them to consider various factors including the candle’s size and rate of burn. Once the experiment began, the students carefully monitored their candles and collected data.
The class burned the candles for 10 minutes before extinguishing them. The students then extrapolated the information from their data plots to estimate the total burn time.
After analyzing their graphs, the class reached a clear conclusion: the company’s 25-minute claim was disputed!
This engaging experiment taught students how to graph and use data as evidence.
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