Heat Flow (Monday's Lesson)

Interactive, scaffolded model

Overview and Learning Objectives

This computer-based lesson uses the Molecular Workbench (MW) software to make heat visible and to provide a playground where students can interact with heat and temperature, pose questions, run experiments, and see what happens.

Students will be able to:

• demonstrate, using the model, the way kinetic energy will transfer from atom to atom until all atoms have the same average kinetic energy. - explain that, since heat flows until temperatures are equal, temperature is the average kinetic energy

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Central Concepts

Key Concept:

Students learn that kinetic energy is associated with speed and that it can be transferred through collisions. From there, it's a short step to see that atoms will share some of their kinetic energy with any other atoms they contact and that the average kinetic energy is temperature.

Additional Related Concepts

Physics/Chemistry

• Heat energy
• Temperature

Systems

• Homeostasis

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Benchmarks and Standards

AAAS

• THE PHYSICAL SETTING: ENERGY TRANSFORMATIONS - Heat energy in a material consists of the disordered motions of its atoms or molecules (Full Text of Standard)
  
  
• THE PHYSICAL SETTING: ENERGY TRANSFORMATIONS - Transformations of energy usually produce some energy in the form of heat, which spreads around by radiation or conduction into cooler places (Full Text of Standard)
  
  

NSES

• Physical-Science: Energy Conservation / Entropy - 3 Heat consists of random motion and the vibrations of atoms, molecules, and ions (Full Text of Standard)
  
  

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Additional Info

Additional Background

http://www.concord.org/publications/newsletter/2006-fall/mondays-lesson.html

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Macro Micro Link

Understanding atomic interactions is essential for understanding heat flow, so experimentation with MW gives students a unique way to figure out what's happening on their own.

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Activity Credits

Created by CC Project: Molecular Logic using Molecular Workbench

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Requirements

• Java 1.5+ - Java 1.5+ is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X 10.4 and greater. If you are using Mac OS X 10.3, you can download MW Version 1.3 and explore within it instead.

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