• Question: how whould you test the amount of oxygen in the air xxx

    Asked by alex to Aggelos, Andrew, Eileen, Naomi, Shane on 13 Nov 2012.
    • Photo: Shane Bergin

      Shane Bergin answered on 13 Nov 2012:

      you could burn cotton wool in the air. the brighter and quicker it burns, the more oxygen would be present (fire requires oxygen to burn)

    • Photo: Aggelos Zacharopoulos

      Aggelos Zacharopoulos answered on 13 Nov 2012:

      @alex
      You should use a gas analyser which will give you the amounts of each individual gas in an air sample. Obviously if it is atmospheric air on the earth’s surface you should expect around 21% oxygen (by volume).

    • Photo: Eileen Diskin

      Eileen Diskin answered on 14 Nov 2012:

      There are a few ways. You can do it using fancy machines, but those are expensive!

      If you want to try it at home (for a lot cheaper!), you can do an experiment: http://www.exo.net/~emuller/activities/Percent%20Oxygen%20in%20air%20fin.pdf

    • Photo: Andrew Jackson

      Andrew Jackson answered on 14 Nov 2012:

      burning stuff sounds like fun to me 😉

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