What ideas do students have about pressure and volume?
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Research suggests that students have both productive ideas about and difficulties with hydrostatics. What ideas do students have about hydrostatic pressure and volume?
July 5, 2018
Pedagogy Content- Attending to student ideas
Physics Content- Pressure
Instructor Interaction ✓
Transcript, discussion questions, and problem
(1 MB)Specific Lesson Guide
Facilitator's guide for this lesson
(1 MB)General Facilitator's Guide
Background and best practices
(115 MB)Video
Captioned video
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Sample Discussion Prompts
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What did you notice in this episode? Talk to your neighbor about what you noticed.
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Curtis says they had thought “the big one would shoot out farther” (line 16). What reasoning might a student have for this common idea?
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These students consider several properties that the strength of squirting might depend on: the size of the hole (line 37), the height of the hole (line 39), the size of the hole in comparison to the size of the container (line 40), and the diameter of the stream (line 50). Which of these things do you think makes a difference?
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What do you think – would water really shoot out the same from the side of a cup and the side of a pool?
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What student ideas about pressure and volume are indicated in this episode?
