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Adventure #2:
Discharge is how much water is flowing at a time.
Let's say you know how much water you have in a jug. Now you pour it out for about 10 seconds. Look at the amount of water you poured out of the jug. If you poured out 200 milliliters (mL), the discharge would be 200 mL/10 sec or 20 mL/sec.
Velocity is how fast the water moves in the stream. It is kinda the same as the speed of a car. If a car goes 60 mph, it means it is driving at a velocity of 60 miles in 1 hour.
Option 1
Just as in previous experiments, write your observations as well as the date and time in your field journal. A field journal is the most important tool for a scientist. Every possible observation and thought is written down in a field journal.
Discharge
Discharge
A discharge is a measure of how much of any fluid flows over a certain time. The quantity may be either volume or mass. The most commonly used is volume.
Calculating Discharge
Calculating Discharge
If you wonder how fast the water flows that come out of your faucet you can do this rather easily. The only thing you need is a stopwatch (most smartphones have this ability) and a measuring cup.
Place the measuring cup under the faucet. When you turn on the faucet, start the stopwatch. Say you do this for 10 sec. (Depending on the size of your measuring cup you will need to adjust the time to longer or shorter)
After 10 seconds, look at how much water you have collected in the measuring cup. Divide the amount of water collected by the seconds.
For example, I collected 200 mL of water in 10 seconds. 200 divided by 10 is 20. Thus the discharge at my faucet is 20 mL/sec.
If you are with a responsible adult, you may complete option 2 by going to a nearby stream and calculating the velocity.
If you want to follow option 2, click here:
Now that you're done learning about different streams, discharge, and velocity, it's time to see what streams actually do to our landscape. Click the button below to continue Adventure #2!
Now that you're done learning about different streams, discharge, and velocity, it's time to see what streams actually do to our landscape. Click the button below to continue Adventure #2!
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