Week 4 - The Heat is On

In my experiment on insulation and heat transference,  I observed that aluminum cover held the highest water temperature, proved to be the best insulator, causing the least heat transference or cooling. This experiment chose four types of materials such as paper, aluminum foil, plastic, and cloth.  Materials can be considered good conductors or poor conductors by their ability to transfer heat between substances that are in direct contact with each other.  The better the conductor, the more rapidly the heat will transfer. The poorer the conductor, the lesser their  ability to transfer.  Temperature is affected by the loss of or transference of energy (Tillery, Enger, Ross, 2008)

If Iwere to repeat this experiment, I would not use the glass containers.  Even though they were effective insulators, they were also effective conductors, and handling them was difficult because they were so hot.  The material I would like to chose for a container would be cardboard material because the outside would be easier to hold.

I would like to test a breakfast cereal or soup.  They might not react the same way, due to the added ingredient of salt.  Salt would keep the items hotter longer. 

In the classroom, I would like to cook soup for my kids and pretend that they were bears and Goldilocks came over and, well, you know what happens...  I think that they would find this engaging and this would bring real-world connections into the lesson.  The next time, they have soup, they will always remember why it stays hot, or why it loses its heat and cools off quickly. 

I would like students to also consider the spoons that they used and try to establish the spoon material as whether it is a good conductor or not.