Temperature Investigation

We are reading and learning about the weather right now, and I thought it was important to know a little bit about how we measure temperatures.  We bought an outdoor thermometer (they are only about $2, unless you buy the digital variety but I wanted a good old fashioned thermometer) and examined it a bit.

I asked questions:

• What do you think the red line means?
• What are the numbers on the side?
• Which way will the red line move if the temperature gets hotter/colder?
• Our thermometer has numbers in twenty degree increments (on the Fahrenheit side), so I took this opportunity to count by 10s with R and ask her what numbers fill in the blanks on the thermometer

Then we proceeded with a Sid the Science Kid experiment.  We filled one bowl with ice and put the thermometer in the bowl.  R correctly predicted that the temperature would go down.  She observed how cold the ice felt and enjoyed watching the red line move.

Then we filled a bowl with warm oatmeal.  I'm not sure why they use oatmeal on the show (the website description of the experiment lists warm water as the test), but R insisted on doing it exactly like Sid and we happened to have a packet of expired instant oatmeal so we used it in the name of science!  R loved squishing the oatmeal between her fingers (she is so different from C!) and observed how warm it felt.  She correctly predicted that the temperature of the oatmeal was higher than the temperature of the room.

R had fun moving the thermometer back and forth between the two bowls and observing the change in temperature.  We did not track the temperatures; we just noted whether they went up or down.  The big thrill was watching the red line move! 




If you would like to try some fun science experiments with your kids and don't really know what to do, check out what other bloggers have done with their kids by visiting Science Sunday at Adventures in Mommydom.