Kindergarten students associate the sun with light and warmth. This lesson helps them expand this knowledge by getting their hands dirty! They will fill cups with soil, water and rocks and place them in the sun and shade for a while. By finding out how they can tell where a cup has been stored, they will learn how the sun affects Earth's surface.
Unified theory of information with applications to computing, communications, thermodynamics, and other sciences. Digital signals and streams, codes, compression, noise, and probability. Reversible and irreversible operations. Information in biological systems. Channel capacity. Maximum-entropy formalism. Thermodynamic equilibrium, temperature. The Second Law of Thermodynamics. Quantum computation.
Students test the insulation properties of different materials by timing how long it takes ice cubes to melt in the presence of various insulating materials. Students learn about the role that thermal insulation materials can play in reducing heat transfer by conduction, convection and radiation, as well as the design and implementation of insulating materials in construction and engineering.
This link has a teacher guide, 3 student graphing activity sheets, rubric and a complete description of the activities related to climate change and invasive species.
Students will record the temperature daily, using a bar graph, color coded bars. this monthly bar graph helps students understand phenology and interpreting graphs.
With the assistance of a few teacher demonstrations (online animation, using a radiometer and rubbing hands), students review the concept of heat transfer through convection, conduction and radiation. Then they apply an understanding of these ideas as they use wireless temperature probes to investigate the heating capacity of different materials sand and water under heat lamps (or outside in full sunshine). The experiment models how radiant energy drives convection within the atmosphere and oceans, thus producing winds and weather conditions, while giving students the hands-on opportunity to understand the value of remote-sensing capabilities designed by engineers. Students collect and record temperature data on how fast sand and water heat and cool. Then they create multi-line graphs to display and compare their data, and discuss the need for efficient and reliable engineer-designed tools like wireless sensors in real-world applications.
Students learn about the difference between temperature and thermal energy. They build a thermometer using simple materials and develop their own scale for measuring temperature. They compare their thermometer to a commercial thermometer, and get a sense for why engineers need to understand the properties of thermal energy.
In this lesson from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, students observe what happens to a closed container containing heated water is cooled. Students use their observations to construct an explanation of what happened. The lesson includes suggested questions for a teacher to use to probe student understanding as they make their observations. The lesson would be a valuable activity to include in a unit on states of matter to help students build understanding of the particle-level nature of matter. Connections to common misconceptions are included in the resource that can be used to guide teacher questioning durign the lesson.
This activity is an inquiry lesson where students learn how to accurately read a thermometer and then set up an investigation to compare the temperatures of different materials or locations.
This site contains 6 lessons: Chapter 1: Matter—Solids, Liquids, and Gases, Chapter 2: Changes of State, Chapter 3: Density, Chapter 4: The Periodic Table & Bonding, Chapter 5: The Water Molecule and Dissolving, Chapter 6: Chemical Change. Each lesson has chapter reading, videos, teacher lesson pages, student activity sheets, activity answer sheets, explore activities, downloadable lessons. Everything you need for each of these topics. Each chapter has multiple lessons breaking down the content.
Students come to see the exponential trend demonstrated through the changing temperatures measured while heating and cooling a beaker of water. This task is accomplished by first appealing to students' real-life heating and cooling experiences, and by showing an example exponential curve. After reviewing the basic principles of heat transfer, students make predictions about the heating and cooling curves of a beaker of tepid water in different environments. During a simple teacher demonstration/experiment, students gather temperature data while a beaker of tepid water cools in an ice water bath, and while it heats up in a hot water bath. They plot the data to create heating and cooling curves, which are recognized as having exponential trends, verifying Newton's result that the change in a sample's temperature is proportional to the difference between the sample's temperature and the temperature of the environment around it. Students apply and explore how their new knowledge may be applied to real-world engineering applications.
In the presence of water, citric acid and sodium bicarbonate (aka baking soda) react to form sodium citrate, water, and carbon dioxide. Students investigate this endothermic reaction. They test a stoichiometric version of the reaction followed by testing various perturbations on the stoichiometric version in which each reactant (citric acid, sodium bicarbonate and water) is strategically doubled or halved to create a matrix of the effect on the reaction. By analyzing the test matrix data, they determine the optimum quantities to use in their own production companies to minimize material cost and maximize carbon dioxide production. They use their test data to "scale-up" the system from a quart-sized ziplock bag to a reaction tank equal to the volume of their classroom. They collect data on reaction temperature and carbon dioxide production. More advanced students are challenged to theoretically predict the results using stoichiometry.
Watch a reaction proceed over time. How does total energy affect a reaction rate? Vary temperature, barrier height, and potential energies. Record concentrations and time in order to extract rate coefficients. Do temperature dependent studies to extract Arrhenius parameters. This simulation is best used with teacher guidance because it presents an analogy of chemical reactions.
Watch a reaction proceed over time. How does total energy affect a reaction rate? Vary temperature, barrier height, and potential energies. Record concentrations and time in order to extract rate coefficients. Do temperature dependent studies to extract Arrhenius parameters. This simulation is best used with teacher guidance because it presents an analogy of chemical reactions.
Students explore whether rooftop gardens are a viable option for combating the urban heat island effect. Can rooftop gardens reduce the temperature inside and outside houses? Teams each design and construct two model buildings using foam core board, one with a "green roof" and the other with a black tar paper roof. They measure and graph the ambient and inside building temperatures while under heat lamps and fans. Then students analyze the data and determine whether the rooftop gardens are beneficial to the inhabitants.
In this 5-lesson multi-media unit, students will explore various real-world applications of different forms of measurement, including time and distance. They will make estimations and calculations. Throughout the unit, students will be using online resources to familiarize themselves with coral reefs, the nation of Belize, and to plan a pretend scuba diving trip. Activity sheets (pdf), links to online resources, assessment options and other commentary are provided.
This lesson introduces students to the space environment. It covers the major differences between the environment on Earth and that of outer space and the engineering challenges that arise because of these discrepancies. In order to prepare students for the upcoming lessons on the human body, this lesson challenges them to think about how their bodies would change and adapt in the unique environment of space.
Watch different types of molecules form a solid, liquid, or gas. Add or remove heat and watch the phase change. Change the temperature or volume of a container and see a pressure-temperature diagram respond in real time. Relate the interaction potential to the forces between molecules.
Heat, cool and compress atoms and molecules and watch as they change between solid, liquid and gas phases.
In this activity, students act as engineers to determine which type of insulation would conserve the most energy.