What a learner can do afterwards
- Uses a thermometer and stopwatch to record temperature change over time in a heating experiment
- Applies Q = mcΔT to calculate the energy transferred to a substance being heated
- Identifies sources of energy loss in a heating experiment (e.g. heat to surroundings) and suggests improvements
- Plots a temperature-time graph and identifies the energy transfer rate from its gradient
The lesson
In a heating experiment, you measure how hot something gets as you add energy to it. You need a thermometer to read the temperature, and a stopwatch to time how long you have been heating.
Say you heat 0.2 kg of water and its temperature rises from 20°C to 40°C. Water has a specific heat capacity of 4200 J/kg°C, so ΔT = 20°C. Using Q = mcΔT: Q = 0.2 x 4200 x 20 = 16,800 J of energy transferred.
Not all your energy heats the water. Some escapes into the air, the beaker, or the surroundings. You can cut this loss by using a lid, wrapping the beaker in insulation, or timing your heating carefully.
When you plot your temperatures on a graph against time, the steepness of the line, its gradient, tells you how fast energy was being transferred.
Record temperature over time, use Q = mcΔT to work out the energy transferred, and watch out for heat lost to the surroundings.
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8 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.