Temperature Tactics

Student Worksheet:
Design Your Own Temperature Gauge

You are working as a team of engineers who have been given the challenge to design your own working device to measure decreases in temperature from the materials provided by your teacher.  You'll need to develop a scale that will show a range of temperatures including room temperature, a freezer, and perhaps other environments your teacher will select.  Your thermometer must have a scale or range that meets your application, and be repeatable
 Planning Stage
Meet as a team and discuss the problem you need to solve.  Then develop and agree on a design for your thermometer.  You'll need to determine what materials you want to use and how you'll attach them to a scale. Your scale is up to you -- it may contain positive and negative numbers, or letters or symbols!

Hint: You might want to do some advance testing by putting individual materials -- or materials you glue or attach together -- in a freezer to see in advance how they change with decreased temperatures. 

Draw your design in the box below and present your design to the class. You may choose to revise your teams' plan after you receive feedback from class.  

	
Materials Needed:

	
  Temperature Tactics

Student Worksheet (continued): 

 Construction Phase

Build your temperature gauge.  During construction you may decide you need additional materials or that your design needs to change.  This is ok -- just make a new sketch and revise your materials list. 

 Testing Phase

Each team will test their temperature gauge by leaving it in either a freezer or cooler filled with ice for at least an hour.  Your teacher may have you leave your gauge in a freezer overnight. Be sure to watch the tests of the other teams and observe how their different designs worked.

 Observation

In the box below, indicate what "temperature" on your scale you observed with your device:

	Room Temperature	Freezer	Refrigerator	Other 	
Actual Thermometer Temperature					
1st Reading From Your Team's Temperature Gauge					
2nd Reading From Your Team's Temperature Gauge					
3rd Reading From Your Team's Temperature Gauge					

 Evaluation Phase

Evaluate your teams' results, complete the evaluation worksheet, and present your findings to the class.

  Temperature Tactics

Student Evaluation Worksheet 

Use this worksheet to evaluate your team's results in the "Temperature Tactics"
 lesson:

1. Did you succeed in creating a temperature gauge that changed to indicate a colder temperature?  If not, why did it fail?

2. Was your temperature gauge able to repeat the tests with similar readings?

3. Did you decide to revise your original design or request additional materials while in the construction phase?  Why?

4. Do you think your temperature gauge would also be able to measure heat?  Why or who not? 

5.  List three applications where being able to accurately measure temperatures is critical to humans:

1.
2.
3.
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Student Evaluation Worksheet (continued)

6. Do you think that engineers have to adapt their original plans during the construction of systems or products?  Why might they?

7. What designs or methods did you see other teams try that you thought worked well?

8.  How did you decide on the scale you would use to measure temperature with your device?

9.  If you could improve the thermometer your family uses to take your temperature when you are sick what would you do?  What features would you want to improve?

10. Provide an application where you think a particularly sensitive thermometer would be needed.