One of the more unusual and more important properties of water is the ability to absorb a lot of heat before the temperature of the water increases. Likewise, water and release a lot of heat without the temperature changing drastically. As your students will learn later, this is a very important function both for our bodies and for out environment.

The following three experiments will help your students to discover this property on their own as well as learn about real applications of this property. The first experiment shows that it takes more heat to increase the temperature of water compared to isopropyl alcohol. The second experiment demonstrates that water gives off more heat than isopropyl alcohol as it cools. The third experiment compares the heat content of two common metals used for cooking utensils, aluminum and copper, with the heat content of water. Through most of the experiments, you students will be using tap water and isopropyl alcohol. Isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol) is easy to obtain at any drug store and will have a large enough difference in its results from the tap water to demonstrate the point well.

The students will earn many skills while completing these labs. There are quantitative as well as graphical activities to help organize the data and understand the concepts. Students should work in pairs or triples for all of the activities. If there are not enough hot plates and supplies for several set ups, the experiments can be done by the teacher as a demonstration and the following activities can then be done by each groups using the data obtained by the whole class.

Each experiment will take approximately a day to complete. There are many other ideas that can be associated with this heat capacity unit. For example, these experiments all have real life applications that can be discussed. This can also be used in units involving the environment since water is a main substance in our lives.

Get your students ready to have fun and learn all about the Heat Capacity of Water!