Heat Transfer

We are investigating heat transfer by conduction, convection and radiation.

This image shows heat being conducted from the element to the glass beaker, to the water and then to the air.

The experiment was to discover whether salt water and fresh water had the same boiling point. The water in the beaker on the left boiled in 3:43 minutes and the water in the beaker on the right was still not boiling at that point. The question is: which beaker had the salt water and which beaker contained the fresh water??

Collapsing Pop Can

Today we did an investigation to see what would happen if we heated up an empty pop can and immediately immersed it in cold water. You can see an excellent video shot by Ava here

Please talk about how the Particle Theory explains what happened.

Understanding Multiplication of Fractions

We are using patterning blocks to understand what it means to multiply a fraction times a fraction. Multiplying positive whole numbers always gives a product that is larger than either of the numbers being multiplied (e.g., 2 x 3 = 6). But multiplying fractions means "a part of a part" which means the product is less than either of the 2 fractions being multiplied!

In the next couple of days, we will be practising drawing arrays to model multiplication of fractions.

Introduction to Heat

A lot of the ideas we have about heat are not scientifically correct. Take for example this statement:

"There is more heat in a mug of hot chocolate than in a glass of cold water".

What we are learning is that this statement would be true if we changed "heat" to "thermal energy".

Once we master key concepts, we will be applying what we understand to solve real-life problems