Melting Ice Lab

Highlights of the activity

1. This integrated laboratory activity is designed to help students understand heat capacity and entropy change during an irreversible process.
2. Students mix ice with water in an insulated container and predict the final state of the system and its change in entropy.
3. The wrap-up discussion addresses sources of experimental error and difficulties students encountered while making their calculations.

Reasons to spend class time on the activity

Students will have a chance to work out in groups how to deal with “system” and “surroundings” in a more complicated situation where ice is turning into liquid water. It's an insulated system, so energy conservation comes up. It also gives students a chance to gain understanding of heat capacity and the enthalpy of fusion (or latent heat).

Reflections

• Reflections from the original implementation.

• Reflections from "official" adapters/adopters.

• Reflections from the general public.

Instructor's Guide

• Wiki version

Student Handouts

eemeltingicehand.pdf

eemeltingicehand.tex