We're starting to think there's movement/energy in the liquids after we watched the peppermint candy dissolve in all temperatures of water. So we agreed to add to some food coloring to different temperatures of water and watch what happened!
| It was also the perfect opportunity for us to see how we could show this at a zoomed-in level. Students were asked to show what the liquid looked like when it was hot, room temperature, and cold, acknowledging that the particles and the energy that moved them were different! |
After thoughtful discussion, we agreed that energy couldn't be represented as a particle, since it doesn't have mass and doesn't take up any space. Therefore, we ruled out the ideas from the blue model. The green model had a line for energy, which was better than a particle-shaped idea, but we really couldn't tell the difference between the size of the lines, and we know there should be some difference in quantity since the hot liquid moved the food coloring faster than the cold liquid. Therefore, we ruled on either the purple model or the red model, which quantified energy in terms of size.
One thing we realized though, was that we had a question--does every particle have energy? Or just some? So we turned to a simulator to help us with our thinking, and it really helped! Indeed, every particle has energy and is moving. Hotter liquids have more kinetic energy and cooler liquid have less.
One thing we realized though, was that we had a question--does every particle have energy? Or just some? So we turned to a simulator to help us with our thinking, and it really helped! Indeed, every particle has energy and is moving. Hotter liquids have more kinetic energy and cooler liquid have less.
From here, we thought we could come to consensus on what the particles look like at different temperatures! All this digging deep will really help us consider what exactly causes our warm liquids to cool down and our cool liquids to warm up! What does the air look like compared to the water? How does cool air around a hot liquid get it to cool down? Or warm air around a cool liquid get it to warm up?