Energy (Pell)

Energy and its many formsIn this unit we are learning about different types of energy:Kinetic energyPotential energyHeat

This poster covers a lab about heat and phase transitions

Understanding Energy is a major component of the NYS Physics Standards for high school students

Edwin PellEmail: edpell3@gmail.comMarch 20, 2012

Lab GoalsObserve what effects removing energy from a liquid has:

TemperatureGlobal structure changes, liquid versus solidSpecific energy and changes in specific energyThinking about the ways heat energy is stored:

VibrationalRotationalTranslational

Literature researchWriting on research findings

This experiment uses a beaker of water in a bowl of dry ice

Data is gathered with an electronic temperature probe

Data is stored and graphed on a laptop computer

Here is what the students first seeIt should be familiar from previous knowledge

Next the students see this resultThis is new and unknown to the students, they now have a puzzle to researchSome may choose to end the experiment here

Back to familiar territory, but why has the specific heat changed?

More weirdness, why can't it be simple like in the textbook?Students must ponder what is causing the curved approach to -40 degrees.

After the student has done research in the literature on phase changes the lab writeup is done

The format for the writeup is:

TitleMethodVariablesDataCalculationsResults and what Caused themSummary

For this lab the causes part will require writing at length about literature research results.

This unit started with large scale macroscopic examples of kinetic energy like sledding down hill. In this later lab we are exploring microscopic kinetic energy of molecules to store energy in the form of heat.

We have moved from the concrete to the abstract.