Hot Cans and Cold Cans
Students apply the concepts of conduction, convection, and radiation as they work in teams to solve two challenges. One problem requires that they maintain the warm temperature of one soda can filled with water at approximately human body temperature, and the other problem is to cause an identical soda can of warm water to cool as much as possible during the same 30-minute time period. Students design their engineering solutions using only common everyday materials, and test their devices by recording the water temperatures in their two soda cans every five minutes.
Engineers are always looking for new ways to keep beverages cold.Copyright 2004 Engineering K-PhD Program, Duke University
Engineers encounter problems of warming and cooling liquids in many situations. For prepared beverages, this might require maintaining specific cold or hot temperatures, but either way, the principles applied are the same. Students approach the activity challenges as if they were engineers, using heat transfer principles and the engineering design process to achieve their goals.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Describe everyday examples of ways people try to cause or prevent heating and cooling by conduction, convection, and radiation.
- Give examples of materials that serve well for mechanisms of conduction, convection, and radiation.