Turkey Toaster

This lesson allows students to explore thermal energy transfer by cooking turkeys with the Turkey Toaster. Students start by freely exploring cooking turkeys of different masses for different amounts of time and at different temperatures. In the Challenge Creator, students choose to investigate with either oven temperature or cook time. They make a prediction, run the investigation, and review their results. Students reflect on their results and review other students’ investigations. The lesson ends with students writing a final explanation comparing the thermal energy transferred to two different masses of turkeys during cooking. By the end of the activity, students should understand the following Key Concept: It takes more thermal energy to increase the temperature of a sample with more mass than a sample with less mass. This lesson has been developed in collaboration with the Lawrence Hall of Science.

By Amplify Classroom

6th - 8th Grade

Science

Today’s Goals • Students will notice that larger objects require more thermal energy to reach a certain temperature. • Students will compare the proportional relationship between thermal energy transfer and temperature change for different massed objects.