Teacher: Matthew Messner (Read more about his biography here)
Dates for 4-week course:
T.B.A
Times for Live Sessions:
Monday through Thursday, Starting at 9:30am MT (which is 11:30am ET and 8:30am PT). Each session lasts between 35 and 60 minutes.
Course Description
Language and our feeling life instruct us. We consider the emotional qualities associated with words such as hot, cold, and warmth. We also consider our lived experiences and how these relate to physical phenomena. Moving outward, we carefully inspect the world. We recall middle school experiments, and perform new demonstrations of our own. Following the path of history, we seek to move from deep appreciation of the qualitative to exacting knowledge of the quantitative. We add precise measurement to critical observation, and transform knowledge into equations. In our quest to understand the nature of heat, we become familiar with: thermal equilibrium; conduction, convection, and radiation; conductors and insulators; reflectors and radiators; expansion and contraction; temperature scales; absolute zero; melting, boiling, freezing, fusion, vaporization, condensation, and sublimation; solids, liquids, gases, and plasma; and the interaction of pressure, volume, and temperature.
Topics Covered (subject to change):
- Heat: Transference, Effects, and Equilibrium
- States of Matter and Changes of Phase
- History of Thermometry
- Ideal Gas Laws of Boyle, Charles, and Gay-Lussac
- Thermodynamic Properties: Specific Heat and Latent Heat
- Algebra of Calorimetry: Experimental and Theoretical
- Heat and Climate: Island, Greenhouse, Albedo, and other Effects
- Applications: Architecture, Engines, Heat Pumps, Refrigerators, Vacuum Flasks
If you register your student for a science program and live outside the US, we will send you an invoice for an additional $30-$50 for your science kit shipping, depending on your location.
