Throughout this Virtual Workshop on Temperature and Heat we will be discussing what happens to the temperature of a system if we do something to it. However, first we need to establish clearly what happens if we don't do anything at all. How are the temperatures of the various objects in a room related? If the system has been disturbed, how is the balance restored?

Main pages	Estimated time required
Exploring thermal equilibrium	**30 minutes
Equilibration	30 minutes
Science content:about thermal equilibrium, energy, and energy units	30 minutes
Discussion of thermal equilibrium	30 minutes

** Please note that the first activity involves a long wait, at least a few hours, ideally most of the day.  So set that up ahead of time.

Materials needed for this section

• Thermometers*
• Hot and cold water (please see the section local materials ).
• Two glass jars with lids, big enough to hold a thermometer.
• A woolly sock, or a glove
• A piece of aluminum foil
• Graph paper (see advice on graphing)

• Advice on graphing
• Print your own graph paper 10x10   15x15   20x20
• Using Excel (an explanation, not in Excel).
• Using Excel(this page is in Excel. It is the file xlexample.xls on the CD).
• Using Excel to make a graph (This page is in Excel. It is the file "tgraph.xls" on the CD).