Squishability of Water Vapor

Highlights of the activity

1. This small group activity is designed to elicit student reasoning about thermodynamic derivatives and experimental design.
2. Students work in small groups to estimate a particular partial derivative with two different variables held constant, then design experiments to measure this partial derivative.
3. The whole class wrap-up discussion emphasizes thinking about independent, dependent, controlled, and fixed variables.

Reasons to spend class time on the activity

Reflections

• Reflections from the original implementation.

• Reflections from "official" adapters/adopters.

• Reflections from the general public.

Instructor's Guide

• Wiki version

eesurfsquishguide.pdf

Student Handouts

eesurfsquishhand.pdf