Biology Abstract - Alka Seltzer

Sammy Hassan

Mrs. Droege

Biology, 4B

September 7, 2007

Surface Area to Volume Ratio

S.Hassan, September 7. 2007

AISJ, Jeddah Saudi Arabia

Surface area is known to be beneficial to keeping organisms alive it allows huge organs such as the intestines to fit in a small area by being coiled and packed together tightly. This experiment looked if the surface area to volume ratio affected the speed of a chemical reaction. For this experiment, a film container was filled one-half full with water. Then an Alka-Seltzer tablet was added, quickly covered with a cap and was observed until the film cap popped off. The time was then immediately recorded and the procedure was the repeated three times each with whole and crushed Alka-Seltzer tablets. Then results from three fellow classmates' experiments would be recorded and added to our own results. The hypothesis was that more surface area exposed and smaller volume would result in a faster chemical reaction of the material. Since the Alka-Seltzer tablet would be less exposed and have a larger volume as a whole, the crushed tablet was thought to have a faster chemical reaction due to its small volume and larger exposure. The hypothesis was supported. The whole Alka-Seltzer tablet had an average of 7.80 seconds from twelve trials, while the crushed tablet had an average of only 3.56 seconds from twelve trials. However, errors may have occurred due to the fact the tablets and film caps weren't put in at synchronized times. The water levels in the film containers were also not measured accurately because they were estimated.