Investigating How Building Materials Store And Release Heat

Climate change is happening all over the world, and all around us.  There are many factors contributing to this phenomenon.

It is a well known fact that in many urban areas we will find warmer temperatures than we may in the countryside or forested areas.  And within those Urban areas we can find micro-climates. Micro-climates are very small areas that are known to have different climates than that of the surrounding area. Large contributing factors are the different types of building materials we are using in cities - this includes homes, schools, roads, malls, even skate parks - and the lack of green spaces.

• Many areas that we live in are urban areas

• It is know that urban areas have warmer temperatures than rural areas

• Much of this warming is due to the amount of and type of building materials

• Many of these areas can be referred to as micro-climates

Most urban areas are covered by roads, buildings, parking lots and sidewalks. Many buildings store heat throughout the day as they absorb it and then release it during the night.  

The Experiment

 Materials:

• Thermometer

• Ice cubes

• 3 pieces of different building materials (wood, asphalt shingles, plastic composite, concrete, sheet metal, etc.)

• Organic surface samples (such as grass, soil, sand or dirt) 

• a stopwatch

• a pencil and notebook for recording observations
  

Step 1. Go outside and collect all the natural elements needed for the experiment.

Step 2. Collect a few building materials that we would find in a town or city.

Step 3. Place the building materials and your organic material outside in the sun.

Step 4. Allow the materials to acclimatize to the temperature and sun outside for 30 minutes.

Step 5. Take a reading of the current air temperature. Record the temperature in your notebook. 

Step 6. Lay your thermometer on the building materials to also record the surface temperature. Write down the results in your notebook.

Step 7. With your hand feel the temperature of the different materials. Hypothesize what material will melt the ice the fastest and what will melt the ice cube the slowest.

Step 8. Place an ice cube on each piece of material. Start your stopwatch. In your notebook record how long it took for each ice cube to melt. 

Review your data

1. Use your results to create a bar graph.

2. Which material melted the ice cube the fastest?

3. Which material melted the ice cube the slowest?

4. Why do you think this happened?

5. Which material had the highest surface temperature?

6. Which material had the lowest surface temperature?

7. Do these temperatures align with the rate at which the ice was melted?

8. What could we do to keep temperatures cooler in our urban environments?