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Investigation Question 1:
How can we put things in a sequence by how hot they are?

What To Do

• Setting the Scene
• Presenting the Investigation Question
• Assessing What Your Students Already Know
• Exploring the Concept

To introduce students to ideas about temperature, they first need to realize that materials can exist at different levels of heat. This first investigation is designed to get them started on that learning pathway.

Hold up a cup of very hot water-hot enough that steam is coming off of it. Ask the students to describe it. (Among other things, they will say that it is "hot".) Next, hold up a cup of water that obviously has ice floating in it. Ask students to describe this cup. (Among other things, they will say that it is "cold"). Now, pour some of the hot water and most of the cold water into a third cup and ask students to describe it. (They are likely to say the water is "warm", or it is "cool"). Finally, pour the remaining cold water into the first cup, with the remaining hot water, and ask about it. Among the answers for the last cup are likely to be descriptions including "warm" and "hot", and maybe even "hotter than warm". Some students may revise one or more responses to include "cool" and/or "warm" in place of each other. While terms such as "warm" and "cool" are relative terms, we can get an idea of how they can be used in a sequence. What if we could not feel how hot something is directly? How else could we put things in sequence by how hot they are?

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Introduce your students to the investigation question: " How can we put things in a sequence by how hot they are?"

Have your students discuss the question in pairs, then in groups, and then as a whole class. Record their answers on the flipchart.

Have your students brainstorm ideas about how this investigation question could be investigated. 

1. Design an experiment that could be used to test the investigation question. 
2. What materials would be needed? 
3. What would you have to do?
4. What would be measured?
5. How long would the experiment take?

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Here are some pictures and initial questions that your students can discuss, in pairs, groups and as a whole class:

What do you think the air would feel like if you were standing here? If you were here, how would you be dressed? How can you tell when air is cooler than where you are now? What might the air temperature be in this place?   © Bruce Molnia, Terra Photographics Emperor Penguins on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica   What do you think the air would feel like if you were here? If you were here, how would you be dressed? How can you tell when air is warmer than where you are now? What is temperature and how can it be measured? © Larry Fellows, Arizona Geological Survey   Hawaii's Akaka Falls State Park

Have your students report out their ideas and make a list of them. From their responses you will get a good sense of the understanding they bring to the concept of temperature. (Some may have an understanding of how temperature can be measured with a thermometer - others may not).

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1. Introduce the three cups of water to your students. Have them to feel the water in each then arrange them in the order of coldest to warmest. (B, C, A.) Ask your students to explain how they are distinguishing hot from cold, warm or cool. What are they using to detect the differences in the water samples? (They are using their sense of "touch.")
2. Ask your students to think about other ways they could tell the heat differences in the cups? (Some may mention using a thermometer. If so, tell your students that they are going to investigate thermometers.)

   © Science Kit Ungraduated Thermometer

3. Give your students a blank thermometer tube. Ask them to describe what they see. Have your students observe and record what happens when they insert the thermometer tube first in B, the cold water, then in C, the warmer water, and finally in A, the hot water. (They should see the differences in the height of the liquid in the tube.)
4. Have your students draw what they see on the sheet provided below.

   Adobe PDF (37 KB) | Word Document (30 KB)

5. Immediately following their observations, ask the students to display their drawings so that they can share and compare. The relative height of the red column in each tube is all that is important, not the exact length. As described above, A should be higher than B, and B should be higher than C.
6. Give each group a fourth cup marked D with water that is between the temperatures of those in the first three cups (different groups can have different temperatures from one another.) For safety reasons, do not make the water in the fourth cup hotter than the hottest water, which was in cup A. If possible, have a lid on this cup that allows the thermometer tube to be put through, but does not allow the students to touch the water.
7. Tell the students to determine where this cup should go relative to the other three in the sequence without touching the water in cup D-using only their thermometer tube.
8. Discuss how the placement of cup D was determined by each group. If groups disagree about the placement of D in the sequence, ask them if it might be possible that the groups had water of different temperatures. How could they check that with their equipment? (Place the thermometer tube in cup D for the different groups and compare how long the red column is for each.)
   

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