Food supplies energy for all animals—without it we could not live. The quantity of energy stored in food is of great interest to humans. The energy your body needs for running, talking, and thinking comes from the foods you eat.

The attached lab will performed by students this week (the week of 11/19). They will be asked to determine the energy content of a marshmallow. They will first use the energy from a burning marshmallow to heat a known quantity of water. By monitoring the temperature of the water, they can find the amount of heat transferred to it (in kJ), using the formula

q = cpmΔt

where q is heat, Cp is the specific heat capacity of water, m is the mass of water, and Δt is the change in temperature of the water. Finally, the amount of marshmallow burned will be taken into account by calculating the heat per gram of marshmallow consumed in the combustion.