For your collective amusement ... today's 45 minute lesson with
primary school kids was thermal testing of house construction
materials.

They each received a paper bag containing model components; floor,
four walls, and roof.  Clear acrylic, corrugated plastic, various
colours of cardboard, and wood.  They assembled each with adhesive
tape.

Then we exposed the models one by one to 150W PAR38 lamp at 30cm
distance for two minutes and pointed an infrared thermometer on the
inside floor to evaluate the thermal performance of the materials.

During exposure kids were asked to think about the materials and
predict a temperature.

Results were not as expected; we had neglected to instruct the kids to
seal all the holes.  ;-)

Heating of the test area was reduced by lining up the models with
about 50cm separation and moving the lamp down the row rather than
move the models under the lamp.

--=20
James Cameron
http://quozl.netrek.org/
--=20
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