Science Reasoning Center - Thermal Physics

There were two Thermal Physics passages in the Legacy version that targeted students' science reasoning abilities. They have each been converted to a Version 2 activity. We have included the links below:


Heating Curve
This passage describes the phase changes that occur in a sample of matter as it is heated from a temperature below its melting point to a temperature above its boiling point. In addition to the two paragraphs describing the state changes, a heating curve graph is included. Questions target a student's ability to use the model presented in the body of text to interpret the graph, to connect information in the body of text to the graph, and to compare various points on the graph to one another in terms of the state of matter that is present and the process (state change or temperature increase) that is occurring.



Linear Expansion of Materials
This passage describes in quantitative terms the linear expansion that materials undergo when heated. The passage includes an equation, a table of coefficients of expansion, and a graph. Questions target a student's ability to use an equation to make predictions, to draw conclusions that are consistent with a model, to select points on a graph, to combine data from a table and a graph in order to compare the expansion of a material under various circumstances, to extrapolate outside the range of values provided by a graph, and to combine data from a table and a graph to make predictions about the amount of expansion a given length of material would undergo.