Temperature and Heat -- Room Temperature

Exploring Room Temperature: Is water cold? Is wool warm?

Here is an exploration that will help you start thinking about room temperature.

Compare the thermometers in your kit to each other. Put them on your work surface and allow their temperatures to stabilize, and then note the temperature of each one before you do the following investigation. There may be some variation (of perhaps a few degrees) because these thermometers are not very accurate devices.

We found out in the first section that the bulb is the sensitive part of the thermometer. So be careful not to touch the bulb: you want to measure the temperature of the things that are part of your experiments, not your temperature! We'll always be interested in how much each thermometer changes relative to where it started.

Prepare several thermometers as follows:

Put one thermometer in a woolly sock or a fur-lined mitten -- something you would want on a really cold day.
Put one thermometer in a jar or plastic bag of water, sealed up tight or covered with plastic wrap.
Put one thermometer in a clean dry glass jar or metal can.
And put one thermometer however you think would best measure the temperature of the air in your experiment -- lying on a dry paper towel? Hanging just above the table top? You decide.

Read the initial temperatures, and then leave them undisturbed for at least 3 hours. Write down now your predictions: what temperature do you expect each thermometer to read, and why.

Three or more hours later:
Without handling the thermometers or containers, read the final temperatures in each system, and compare them to each other and your predictions.

Now touch each container and decide whether it feels warmer or cooler than the others. Does your temperature-sense agree with the thermometer?

Write something in your notebook on what you learned: how warm is wool? How cold is water? Are the temperature differences bigger or smaller than you expected; do you think the differences you see are significant and reproducible? You might also discuss precautions that need to be taken to make a really good test.

Please remember that we will want to see your notebooks at the end of the workshop.

Check the box when you are done: Next activity: Equilibration

There is a similar classroom activity "Room Temperature #1" in the teacher manual.