Experiment 5 — Which Spoon Gets Hot First?

Topic: Physics · Classes 6–7 · Heat: conduction, conductors and insulators

Aim: Melt the blob of butter on the handle in under 60 seconds .

Daily: This is why a steel ladle left in hot sambar burns your fingers while a wooden one does not, why cooking pans are metal with plastic handles, and why we wear woollen clothes in winter — wool traps air, and air is a poor conductor.

Question: Identical butter blobs sit on a steel spoon and a wooden spoon in the same hot water. Which melts first?

Exp: Steel is a conductor; wood is an insulator that barely passes heat along.

Question: Heat travels through a metal spoon by…

Exp: Particle-to-particle transfer through a solid is conduction.

Question: Which is the best conductor of heat?

Exp: Copper conducts heat (and electricity) very well.

Question: Woollen clothes keep us warm because…

Exp: Trapped air slows the loss of body heat.

Exp: Energy flows down a temperature difference.