"Create your own thermos to keep liquid runoff from ice water as cold as you can for 20 minutes." Those were the simple instructions given to our group by David Carter who was presenting ways to use Vernier Labquests and probes.
$1 was our budget for "buying" the materials needed to create a thermos. David had several materials available and each one had a price. The most expensive one was 25 cents. Large and small styrofoam cups, blue plastic cups, aluminum foil sheets, paper towel sheets, mittens, and cotton balls were the materials available for us to use. Our group had to decide on a design for the thermos and had to stay within the $1 budget. We discussed different ideas that we had from previous experience with materials that kept liquids cold and decided to use 2 paper towel sheets, 1 small and 1 large styrofoam cup, and 2 aluminum foil sheets. I'll keep our design a secret until our patent comes in. (joking) We used a temperature probe on the Vernier Labquest2 to record the temperature of the water for 20 minutes.
Once everyone was finished, all the groups explained the concepts behind their designs, and we discovered who's ending temperature was the lowest. Our group came in second behind David Carter. (I still think its interesting how the instructor ended up with the lowest temperature haha.)
We then discussed the concepts of convection, conduction, and radiation. Our thermos had to protect against those things in order to be effective. We were able to see how our designs were flawed and discussed what we could do differently to have better results. We also discussed the economic side of designing products and how cost is a major factor. Integrating mathematics was one idea mentioned that I will definitely use in my classroom. To determine a "winner", our group thought of multiplying the temperature difference from start to finish with the amount of money left over from "buying" the materials. What a great, authentic way of having students realize the factors that are involved in business decisions. I loved how so many things were integrated into this one activity. There are so many topics in science and math that we could discuss with students. Inquiry was the star of this activity, and I imagine that my 5th grade students would be enthralled by it.
