Insulator Design Challenge
Students engage in the engineering design process while identifying the relative thermal conductivity of different materials. Students apply their understanding of heat transfer to build an insulator to prevent heat loss or gain from an object. Students practice the engineering design process by building their insulator. At the end, they reflect on the design process and the effectiveness of their product.
Two students work together to build their insulator based on their design from materials provided to them for the activity.Copyright Bradley Agostinelli, 2021
The students are presented with a problem: If you have a hot or cold drink, it will get hotter or colder over time, depending on the environment. How can you prevent this, so you can enjoy your drink longer? Students design, engineer, and test an insulator to try to solve this problem. Students collect time and temperature data and then evaluate whether their insulator was successful compared to others in their class.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Design, construct, and test an insulator with a partner to prevent thermal energy loss or gain.
- Identify materials with high and low relative thermal conductivities.
- Compare and contrast their insulator product with at least one other group by answering guiding questions.
- Evaluate the success of their insulator by analyzing data they collected and discussing that data with their lab group.