Primary Innovation Leaders created and led projects
Thermometer project by Nishevitha – Year6
Target Class- Year 4
Lesson objective: To explore how to make a thermometer with the available resources and to explain how it functions.
Lesson outcome: Children will learn how to make their own thermometer and will explain how it works/functions.
Starter: Materials will be provided, research on how to make it and how it works, learn its daily life usage.
Activity: First start by researching and will be constructing it after 10 minutes.
Conclusion:
As water heats up, it expands and becomes less dense, rising to the surface. When it cools down, it contracts, becoming denser and sinking down. This cycle is called convection. (Water is unique, however - when it gets cold enough to freeze, the molecules line up in an open crystalline structure that is actually less dense than the liquid form. This is why ice floats.) When the water in your bottle thermometer heated up, it expanded. However, since the bottle was sealed, it had nowhere to go but up through the straw.
With your homemade thermometer, you are not actually measuring temperature, just seeing temperature changes. If you have a real thermometer, you can use it to make a scale on your homemade thermometer: let your bottle get to room temperature and then mark the straw with what the actual room temperature is. Then set the bottle in the sun and do the same. Mark several different temperature levels and then watch your thermometer for a day and see how accurate it is.
Rubrics –
Target Class- Year 4
Lesson objective: To explore how to make a thermometer with the available resources and to explain how it functions.
Lesson outcome: Children will learn how to make their own thermometer and will explain how it works/functions.
Starter: Materials will be provided, research on how to make it and how it works, learn its daily life usage.
Activity: First start by researching and will be constructing it after 10 minutes.
Conclusion:
As water heats up, it expands and becomes less dense, rising to the surface. When it cools down, it contracts, becoming denser and sinking down. This cycle is called convection. (Water is unique, however - when it gets cold enough to freeze, the molecules line up in an open crystalline structure that is actually less dense than the liquid form. This is why ice floats.) When the water in your bottle thermometer heated up, it expanded. However, since the bottle was sealed, it had nowhere to go but up through the straw.
With your homemade thermometer, you are not actually measuring temperature, just seeing temperature changes. If you have a real thermometer, you can use it to make a scale on your homemade thermometer: let your bottle get to room temperature and then mark the straw with what the actual room temperature is. Then set the bottle in the sun and do the same. Mark several different temperature levels and then watch your thermometer for a day and see how accurate it is.
Rubrics –