Teaching Temperature
Outside Temperatures. Place a thermometer outside a window so students can make daily calculations and keep a chart reporting the actual temperature and the temperature change from the previous day. Students will see that the change can be a negative number without the temperature falling below 0—an often-confusing concept that is clarified by these observations.
An achievable-challenge extension could include barometers, and students who need more advanced work can learn how negative—or falling—barometric pressure can predict rain. Students’ intrinsic pleasure in using mathematics to make correct weather predictions adds positive emotional context to the memory and increases its durability.
Water and Ice. Have students use glasses of water and ice cubes in a container to track temperature changes. They can record and evaluate the relationship between the number of ice cubes added and change in temperature. Later, the cubes can represent the concept of adding negative numbers—“adding coldness.”
Notes:
Folksonomies: teaching earth science quantification temperature
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Learning to Love Math
