Teacher Demonstration
Use the live model as a shared screen demonstration before students try their own predictions and observations.
Physics / Thermal Physics
Adding Heat
Explore Adding Heat as an interactive EJS simulation for thermal physics.
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1. Watch or Launch
Launch the Interactive
Open the simulation, adjust the controls, and compare what changes on screen before answering the concept-check questions.
2. Big Ideas
Key idea Changes of state are energy-transfer processes that alter particle arrangement and motion without changing the substance's identity. The model helps learners connect solid, liquid, and gas behaviour to particle spacing and motion.
What Students Can Learn
- Compare particle arrangement in solid, liquid, and gas states.
- Connect heating or cooling to changes in particle motion.
- Explain condensation, melting, freezing, or evaporation using energy transfer.
- Separate temperature change from latent energy during state changes where relevant.
Guiding Question
What changes about the particles when the state changes, and what stays the same about the substance?
3. Try the Investigation
Compare Two States
Place two states side by side mentally: describe particle spacing, order, and motion in each state.
Add or Remove Energy
Use the available control or timeline to follow how particles behave during heating, cooling, condensation, or other changes.
Name the Energy Path
Identify whether energy is being gained by or lost from the substance during the transition.
Challenge Fixed-Particle Thinking
Ask whether particles in a solid are completely still, then use the animation to refine that idea.
4. Teacher Notes
Lesson Use
Use this for a particle-level explanation of state changes. Have students describe the animation using spacing, motion, and arrangement before using terms such as condensation or melting.
Discussion Prompts
Ask: What happens to particle spacing as the state changes? Does the substance become a new substance? Where is energy being transferred to or from?
Teaching Moves
Collect one macroscopic observation and one particle-level explanation from each group. This reduces the common habit of naming the state change without explaining the particle mechanism.
5. Concept Check
These questions are generated from the topic and the concept illustrated by the simulation. Use them after students have explored the model.
Concept Score
Correct first attempts build a streak and unlock higher point multipliers on this device.
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1. What particle-level change is central when matter changes state?
2. During condensation, what happens to gas particles as liquid forms?
3. Why compare different states in the model?
4. What evidence should students use?
5. What misconception can the simulation challenge?
7. Learning Pulse
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