What Does Soap do to Water?

A Science Experiment
By Christina

Question: What does soap do to water?

Hypothesis: Soap breaks the surface tension

Supplies:

• A reasonably large bowl
• Water
• Black Pepper
• Tweezers
• Facial Tissue
• Soap
• Gum

Procedure:

1. Fill bowl 3/4 with water.
2. Wait till water is still.
3. Shake pepper on the water until fairly coated.
4. Touch surface with tweezers. Note.
5. Add more pepper
6. Rip small amount of tissue, wet, and roll into a ball.
7. Use tweezers to put facial tissue in. Note.
8. Add more pepper if necessary.
9. Chew gum
10. Pull off a chunk of gum.
11. Use tweezers to put in gum. Note.
12. Let water settle
13. Pull off a bit of soap.
14. Wet soap.
15. Dip soap in water. Note.
16. Clean up.

Data:

• The tweezers had no effect on the pepper.
• The facial tissue had no effect on the pepper.
• The gum had no effect on the pepper.
• When the soap was placed in the water, the pepper moved away from to soap to the edges of the bowl.

Conclusion:

My hypothesis was right. Soap pushes surface tension away and therefor pushes the pepper away with it.