Families (and many professional teachers) often feel they cannot do lab experiments unless they have sophisticated equipment. Not true! My Chem class just finished The Specific Heat of Metal lab. (Here is the Flinn lab we used, too.) The materials were metal samples, styrofoam coffee cups, scales, and thermometers. (We used a density set of metals to determine the specific heat of metals. The set we used has hooks to make them easier to fish out.) The metal samples can be steel washers and iron nails. You can increase the rigor of the experiment without spending anymore money. Repeat the experiment three times with both steel washers and iron nails. Use the accepted values to calculate percent error. Create a spreadsheet with the data. The spreadsheets in the Google suite are free. Just because your family does the lab in the kitchen and makes calculations at the dining room table, it doesn’t diminish the rigor of the lab exercise.
No comments:
Post a Comment