Oh god i swear i'm usually not this dumb but pls !
a group of students is investigating whether copper is a better thermal conductor than steel. the students take a copper wire and a steel wire of the same length and diameter. they put equal lengths of wax on one end of each wire and dip the other end into a beaker of hot water. the length of wax left on the wires after 10 minutes is shown.
experimental observations:
copper:
original length of wax: 3cm
length of wax after 10 minutes: 0.7cm
steel:
original length of wax: 3cm
length of wax after 10 minutes: 1.8cm
what was the dependent variable in this experiment?
type of wire used
original length of wire
original length of wax
thermal conductivity of wire
i think it's c? ?

Thermal Conductivity

Explanation:

The dependent variable is what is being measured in the experiment and it's affected by the independent variable. Thermal conductivity is the best answer, because you are trying to find out which wire is a better conductor of thermal conductivity. Basically, which one conducts more heat? The copper does, because when its put into the hot water it melted more of the wax than the steel wire did.

Thermal conductivity of wire

Explanation:

The hypothesis of the experiment is to find the thermal conductivity of the the wires. The independent variable in the experiment is the type of wire used.

There are two types of wire used in the experiment one is copper and other one is steel. Rest all the variables are control variable.

At the end of the experiment the thermal conductivity was determined. This is the dependent variable of the experiment.

Hence, the correct answer is option D