Apologia: Physical Science Heat

The Physical Science class just started a series of experiments on Heat.  The kids are collecting weather data this month, clipping weather maps from the newspaper, and reading the modules regarding weather: Module 2,3, 7, and 8.  Module 3 has a few pages exploring temperature.  My objective is to insert a bit more physical science and condense the earth science, just a bit.  Consequently, our class is doing a unit on thermofpdynamics which dovetails well with weather.  Our first goal is to differentiate between conduction and convection and heat versus temperature. The kids are doing a wide variety of Heat labs before drawing conclusions.

This week, the kids did two labs, Tops Conduction and Convection and Heat Curve Lab.  This group of home school students is amazing.  They spent an hour with the Tops lab heating and reheating the test tube.  The second lab, creating a 'Heat Curve' involves putting a beaker of ice on the stove or hot plate and monitoring it until it reaches a boil.  The kids worked in pairs using both spirit thermometers and digital thermometers.  They graphed the data by hand and sketched the graph from the two devices.  (For the record, the data collected with an ordinary thermometer showed the equilibrium stages well.)  The class is using two digital thermometers: Easy Link and Airlink, two rival technologies.  The Easylink thermometer plugs into the mini usb on the TI 84 graphing calculator.  The TI 84 has Easy Data preloaded to the graphing calculators. (The application eats batteries.). As soon as the kid plugs the temperature probe into the calculator, the calculator recognizes the temperature sensor and begins collecting data.  The kids can stop and start collecting data immediately.  This part is great!  The not so great part is accessing and manipulating the data.  TI store the data in its stat files which involves turning on the stat plot, setting the window range, etc.  That said, kids can use the thermometer and record the data presented every minute on a piece of paper.  The Airlink is a type of interface.  Here the data is projected on an iPad.  I had been playing with the Airlink device for some time.  Today, one of the kids was able to trouble-shoot the blue-tooth connection beween the iPad and the Airlink. Words can not convey my happiness!  An ordinary thermometer is fine.  Since I have the technology, I want the kids to have some exposure.  Pasco has
several devices Pasco products; generally, the probes are compatible across the different devices.  The temperature and pH sensors have the broadest applications.