Unit 9: Teaching Temperature & Heat

Click here for "Chapter 9" addendum (276 kb PDF).

Inquiry-Oriented Student Performance Objectives:

9.1 Temperature

  1. Students will, using corresponding temperatures and graphical analysis, determine the relationship between Celsius and Fahrenheit temperature scales.
  2. Students will, using a constant volume thermometer, liquid nitrogen, hot water, etc., determine the Celsius temperature of absolute zero.
  3. Students will, using an immersion heater in a cup of water as well as voltmeter and ampmeter, determine the electrical equivalent of heat.
  4. Students will, using a drop tube filled with lead shot, determine the mechanical equivalent of heat.
  5. Students will, using an appropriate apparatus, determine the mechanical equivalent of heat.
  6. Students will, using suitable temperature sensors and data recording instruments, verify Newton’s law of heating/cooling.
  7. Students will, using a thermocouple, determine the relationship between the electromotive force and the temperature differences of the junctions (Seebeck effect).


9.2 Thermal Expansion

  1. Students will, using heat and appropriate measuring devices, determine the coefficient of linear expansion for a known metal.
  2. Students will, using an inverted “fountain” (inverted, stoppered, steam-filled flask with tube extending downward into water), determine the change in volume of steam as it condenses back into liquid form.


9.3 Specific and Latent Heat

  1. Students will, using the method of mixtures, determine the specific heats of various metals.
  2. Students will, using an immersion heater, determine the heat of vaporization for liquid nitrogen.
  3. Students will, using ice, water, and the method of mixtures, determine the heat of fusion of ice.
  4. Students will, using ice and an in-frozen immersion heater, determine the heat of fusion of ice.


9.4 Heat Transfer

  1. Students will,


9.5 Thermodynamics

  1. Students will, using an ideal Carnot engine and appropriate measuring devices, trace out adiabatic and isothermal contours on a graph.

 

Online Resources:

Hippocampus.org - see the numerous physics videos for every conceivable physics topic

Annenburg/CPB Video on Demand - see especially the 52-part series Mechanical Universe.

Return to PHY 312 course syllabus.