Each unit in this Hands-On / Virtual workshop ends with a discussion
page. The questions we ask here serve two important purposes.
First, they help your group reflect on the concepts that you have studied
in this unit, summarize what you have learned, and encourage you to connect
those concepts to other things you experience in the world. Secondly,
they are the means by which the remote instructors of the class get immediate
feedback on how much the group is thinking and learning. They are
the immediate unit assessment.
You are asked as a group to discuss at least 2 of the
following questions. We encourage you to discuss them all, but we
ask for an email commentary to only two of them. Before you start please
see this page for some guidance
on what types of discussion we are looking for. After you email your
discussion, you can expect (within a day or two)
an email from us commenting and elaborating on
what you wrote.
Here are some things to do to finish this section.
Did you think of a question that could be studied, or make an observation
that was interesting or unexpected? You should send it to the
Question
board!
Discuss these questions with the people in your group.
Please
send us a discussion of two of these questions. Don't forget to tell us the
group name.
(Clicking on the link should start your email program, and
fill in the address automatically. However, sometimes this does
not work, or causes the wrong email program to be started.
If the email link does not work for you, send the messages the
way you are used to, to sciworks@pa.uky.edu -- or reply a message
from us!).
The thermometer that we have been studying is
of a standard (somewhat old-fashioned) design.
But there are other ways to measure or sense
temperature. Make a list of these, noting
such features as temperature range for which
they are useful, precision of the measurement
(this means, how much the temperature can
change without the thermometer noticing it --
it is the difference between the second hand
and the minute hand on a clock), accuracy
of the measurement (this means, how believable
is the answer? A very precise clock might
not be accurate, if it had not been set
carefully). In addition to the usual
devices designed to be thermometers,
you could also consider things that depend
on temperature in a definite way, such as
whether the bass are biting.
Why do we care what the temperature is? Discuss some of the things
that go wrong (or go right) when it is hot or cold.
If there is something that you don't understand about thermometers,
Ask us!
This is the end of this unit.
(Check this box
)
The next section is about thermal equilibrium.
--> Please note that the first activity
of the next section involves
a long wait -- you could set it up now, or plan when you will
do it. <--
Here are some other pages you might
want to look at sometime:
There are more thermometer activities in the
manual.
Using the manual Here we discuss
how to use the manual and the activities in the classroom.