Family table: Heat

All four rungs side by side. A younger child and an older one can do the same topic together, each at their own level.

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Step	Classes 1–3	Classes 4–7	Classes 8–10	Classes 11–12
Activity	Hot and Cold	How Heat Travels	Expansion and Change of State with Heat	Specific Heat Capacity and Heat Transfer
Safety	No hot water from the stove or kettle. Warm water should feel comfortable on your own wrist first, like bath water.	You pour the water and place the spoons. Children watch and do not touch the spoons until the water has cooled. The plastic spoon may soften or bend.	No flames or stove at home for this activity. Warm tap water is enough to loosen the lid.	School laboratory with a teacher. Blocks and heaters get hot enough to burn: handle with tongs and let them cool. Never switch on an immersion heater unless it is inside the block or water.
What you need	A bowl of warm water (tested by a grown-up), a bowl of cold water, room-temperature objects (steel spoon, wooden block, cloth, stone) Safe containers	Steel spoon, wooden spoon, plastic spoon (all about the same length) A cup or bowl of warm-to-hot water, poured by a grown-up (from the hot tap or a kettle that has cooled a little; not boiling) Butter or ghee and three small seeds or beads	A glass jar with a tight metal lid, warm tap water Ice, a cup, a thermometer if available At school only: ball-and-ring apparatus and a burner, used by a teacher	School laboratory only: metal blocks (aluminium, copper, steel) with holes for an immersion heater and thermometer, low-voltage electric immersion heater, power supply with ammeter and voltmeter (or joulemeter), insulation, balance, stopwatch
Notice	Some things feel hot, some feel cold.	Heat can move from one place to another.	Heating can change the size or state of materials.	Different materials require different amounts of heat to raise their temperature.
Guess	Which objects will feel warmer or colder than your hand?	Which spoon handle will get warm first when the spoons stand in hot water?	What happens to a metal when heated? What happens to ice?	Which material will show a larger temperature change for the same heat input?
Try	Carefully touch the different objects and dip a finger in each bowl of water.	Stick a small blob of butter with a seed pressed into it at the same height on each handle. A grown-up stands the spoons in the water together.	Close the jar tightly, then hold the lid under warm tap water for a minute and try opening it. Put crushed ice in a cup, stir, and record the temperature every minute while it melts. At school, watch the teacher's ball-and-ring demonstration.	Perform an experiment to determine specific heat capacity (energy supplied = voltage × current × time) or to compare heat transfer.
Observe	Sort them into warmer, cooler, and about the same as your hand.	Which seed drops first? Which material conducted heat best?	Record observations carefully. What happens to the temperature while the ice is still melting?	Record masses, temperatures and times carefully.
Explain	Tell someone how you decided.	Explain that heat travels better through some materials than others.	Link expansion and change of state to heating (the particle model).	Calculate specific heat capacity using E = mcΔT and discuss sources of error (heat loss, etc.).
Ask another question	What makes something heat up or cool down?	Why are cooking pots metal but their handles often plastic or wood?	How is thermal expansion allowed for in bridges and railway tracks?	How is knowledge of specific heat used in engineering or climate science?

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