Heat and temperature game: scales, mixes and heat transfer
A physics game for never again mixing up heat and temperature. There are no answers to pick from. In the scale rounds a thermometer shows two scales at once, degrees Celsius on one side and kelvin or Fahrenheit on the other, with their reference points marked: read one and type the other. In the mix rounds two drawn glasses of water appear, each with its amount and temperature, and you move the mixed glass’s thermometer up or down, watching it change colour, to the temperature it will end up at. There are also everyday scenes to sort into three boxes, conduction, convection or radiation, and a frying pan to build with a body that conducts and a handle that insulates. On the hard level you type in the heat from Q = m · c · ΔT.
Physics · Primary (Year 6), Secondary
Temperature measures how agitated the particles are; heat is the energy that flows from a hot body to a cold one. The questions are built to break the most common misconceptions: that “cold” moves, that a cup at 80 °C has more energy than a bath at 40 °C, or that bodies “contain” heat.
The wrong options are real mistakes: forgetting the + 273 for kelvin, multiplying by 1.8 without adding 32, adding the temperatures of two glasses, taking a plain average when the amounts of water differ, or using the final temperature instead of the change in Q = m · c · ΔT. Each mistake comes with the sum done properly.
The two-scale thermometer shows that 0 °C is 273 K and 32 °F, and 100 °C is 373 K and 212 °F. In the mixes, the height of the water shows how much there is and the colour how hot it is: you can see why the mix ends up closer to the glass with more water.
"You mix 200 g of water at 5 °C with 300 g of water at 60 °C. A plain average would give 32.5 °C, but there is more hot water, so the mix ends up closer to 60 °C. The heat lost by the hot water is gained by the cold: (200 · 5 + 300 · 60) ÷ (200 + 300) = 19,000 ÷ 500 = 38 °C. You raise the mix thermometer to 38 °C: the glass turns a colour between blue and red, closer to red."
Prefer to learn without screens? Try this analogue version:
With a kitchen thermometer, measure a glass of cold tap water and a glass of hot water (carefully).
Work out what temperature the mix should reach if you pour two equally full glasses together.
Mix them in a bigger container and measure: the difference from your answer is the heat lost to the air and the container.
Repeat with twice as much cold water as hot and check that the mix ends up closer to the cold temperature.
If you like Thermometer, these activities work similar skills:
Another science game: what happens to the temperature while ice melts or water boils, and why it stays still.
Another physics game: forms of energy and how they change, with the thermal energy lost at each step.
Pour hot water into a mug, a paper cup and a cup wrapped in a scarf, and measure each one every five minutes to see which insulates best.
More practice on · Physics
Heat & Temperature
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