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Five Sample Panes for the Room by the Highway

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Five Sample Panes for the Room by the Highway

Test how windows reflect, absorb and transmit sunlight and traffic sound.

Part 1: The sunlight test

Read the passage and Table 1, then answer questions 1 to 5.

Choosing New Windows for Room 214

1Room 214 at Corbin Ridge Middle School faces west, about 40 m from a six-lane highway. Students there have two complaints. The deep rumble of trucks makes it hard to hear class discussions, and on sunny afternoons glare off the whiteboard makes the room bright and warm. The school district plans to replace the windows next summer, so science teacher Ms. Odile Fairbanks asked her eighth graders to test five sample panes that the window company sent. Each sample is 30 cm on a side.

2Ms. Fairbanks reminded the class that light and sound are both waves that carry energy. When a wave reaches a pane, part of it can be reflected back, part can be absorbed by the material and part can be transmitted through it. In this model, the reflected, absorbed and transmitted parts add up to 100% of the wave that arrives. Light energy that a material absorbs warms the material.

3The five samples were a clear pane of plain glass 3 mm thick, a tinted pane of the same glass with a gray dye in it, a clear 3 mm pane covered with a mirror-like film, a double pane made of two clear 3 mm panes with a 12 mm air gap between them, and a laminated pane made of two sheets of glass glued to a soft plastic layer, 6 mm thick in all.

4For the light test, students Thandiwe Marsh and Rory Vasquez-Lund built a plywood box, painted black inside, with a 30 cm square hole in one side. A light meter on the floor of the box faced the hole. On a clear day near noon, they set the box in the school courtyard with the hole facing the sun. They first measured the light with the hole open, then taped each sample over the hole and measured again, finishing in 30 minutes so the sun barely moved. A stick-on thermometer on the outside of each pane showed its temperature after 15 minutes in the sun. The air was 24 °C. The percent of light each pane reflects came from the company's data sheet.

5For the sound test, the class lined the same box with foam and moved it to the quiet band room. A sound meter sat inside, and a speaker 1 m outside the hole played two sounds at 80 dB: a low hum like truck engines and a high tone like squealing brakes. The speaker's distance and volume and the meter's place stayed the same for every pane, and each reading in Table 2 is the average of three trials.

Table 1: Sunlight Test (air at 24 °C)
Hole covered byLight inside (lux)Reflected (%)Pane after 15 min (°C)
Nothing (open hole)60,000——
Clear pane54,000826
Tinted pane27,000638
Mirror film pane12,0006031
Double pane48,0001528
Laminated pane52,800827
1.
Use Table 1. Compare the light inside with the clear pane to the light inside with the hole open.

The clear pane transmitted % of the sunlight that reached it.

2.
Use Table 1 and the model in paragraph 2. First find the percent of sunlight the tinted pane transmitted, then use the percent it reflected.

The tinted pane absorbed % of the sunlight that reached it.

3.
The tinted pane reached 38 °C, the highest temperature in Table 1. Which explanation fits the data and paragraph 2 best?
Question 3 options
4.
The mirror film pane let less light into the box than the tinted pane, yet the film pane stayed cooler (31 °C compared with 38 °C). Which model fits both results best?
Question 4 options
5.
Use Table 1 and the model in paragraph 2. Sort each pane by what it did with the largest share of the sunlight that reached it.

Part 2: The sound test

Use Table 2 and paragraph 5 to answer questions 6 to 11.

Table 2: Sound Inside the Box (speaker at 80 dB)
Hole covered byLow hum inside (dB)High tone inside (dB)
Nothing (open hole)7877
Clear pane6252
Tinted pane6252
Mirror film pane6251
Double pane6042
Laminated pane5544
6.
Use Table 2. Compare the clear pane with the open hole.

The clear pane lowered the high tone inside the box by dB.

7.
Which statement best describes the pattern in Table 2?
Question 7 options
8.
The clear pane and the tinted pane gave very different light readings in Table 1 but the same sound readings in Table 2. Which explanation fits paragraph 3 and both tables best?
Question 8 options
9.
Circle the two results that are evidence that the low hum passes through glass more easily than the high tone.

10.
The district sets two requirements for the new windows. In the sunlight test, the light inside must be at least 70% of the open-hole reading, which is 42,000 lux or more. In the sound test, the low hum inside must be 58 dB or less. Which pane meets both requirements?
Question 10 options
11.
Rory says, "The mirror film pane blocks the most sunlight, so it must also block the most traffic sound." Do you agree? Write a claim, give evidence from both tables and explain your reasoning using the words reflect, absorb and transmit.