Autumn

=Title:=

====__//My parents purchased a $200.00 computer table. The company said it was made from solid birch. When my brother tripped over the table, it broke like a vase to a sidewalk. We then found out it was only the legs of the chair that were made with "real" birch. The rest of it was compressed sawdust.//__====

====__//Scale with gram cubes, about a pound of clay, 20 pound weight, one sheet of paper, one pencil, two nails, a ruler, a rectangular clear 1,500 milliliter bowl, a square shaped 5 cm. by 5 cm. of both a birch compressed sawdust board and white pine.//__====

Density test:
__//I found the mass by weighing it on the **scale** and gradually dropping **gram cubes** on the other side of the scale till it was perfectly even. Then to find the volume you multiply length times width times height and measure to the nearest centimeter. Finally you divide mass by the volume (g/cm3). The bigger the number the denser it is.//__

Buoyancy test:
__//To find the buoyancy, drop both the sawdust board and the pine in a **clear 1,500 milliliter bowl**. The one that sinks the farthest is the densest.//__

Nail test:
__//First put a nail onto each block of wood. Hold it in place by molding clay around the base of the nail. Use the **ruler** to measure one foot vertically, and place one piece of wood at the base of the ruler. Then drop the **20 pound weight** from one foot unto the nail on the block of wood. The farther it goes down the LESS dense the wood is//__

Analysis:
__//The Sawdust board was denser in every test. It may have been stronger because of the laminate or because it was compressed very tightly. Regular birch may be lighter or softer so maybe compressing it together might have made it stronger. We can now say "solid" is definitely stronger than "scrap".//__

References:
Sutherland's employees

idahoforests.org/img/pdf/lessons/density.pdf

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Questions for further study:
__//Could it be tested without the laminate or glue? Would the birch sawdust board be stronger than non-sawdust birch?//__