Day 3: WATER!

The topic for today: water!! We first began by discussing the objective we had studied for homework.  Each pair of students was assigned a different objective and asked to explain it on the whiteboard by a drawing a picture...the limit was 8 words.  My partner and I explained why coastal regions have a milder climate than inland regions.

Next, we demonstrated the property of water to form a "dome" when you barely overfill a glass or other container. In our experiment, we used a penny.  As you can see, we BARELY overfilled the penny and a dome of water was formed on top of the penny. This is caused by the shape of the water molecules and how they bond together.

 

Finally, we ended the class by discussing a "case study" in a which we compared a runner in Florida to a runner in Arizona.  Once a runner in Florida begins to sweat in order to cool down, water of course forms on the skin. However, since Florida is usually very humid, the water doesn't evaporate very quickly, thus making the runner sweat less. This is worrisome because once the runner becomes hot, there is no way for him to become cool unless he comes indoors or is able to directly pour water onto himself.  In contrast, a runner who sweats in Arizona will be able to immediately feel relief, because the dry heat in Arizona would evaporate the water very quickly, causing the runner to sweat more and thus feel cooler faster. The only thing that the runner needs to worry about is replenishing that water.