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Potato Problem Solving

Science and Children—March 2010

“Watch out, the stove will burn you,” “Ooh, ice cream headache!” Students construct their conceptions about heat and temperature through their own intuitions about daily life experiences. As a result, misconceptions can be born from these constructed concepts. The activity described here addresses student misconceptions about thermal insulation and challenges them to design a structure with good insulation properties. The project provides opportunities to problem solve through the 5E learning model (Bybee 1997) which includes: exploration, investigation, design, structural analysis, synthesis, and revision.
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