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Hot Sand, Firm Balls and Wet Sleeves: Particles at a Beach Tournament

Grade 7 physical science: analyze volleyball pressure and wet-sleeve thermometer data and use a particle model to explain gas pressure and evaporation.

Grade 7ScienceInteractive · Printable

Aligned toMS-PS1-4

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What’s included

Single worksheet
Auto-graded online
1 NGSS standard
Printable answer key
11 questions
Classroom-ready

Details

Format: Interactive · Printable
Grade: Grade 7
Subject: Science
Question types: Fill in the blank, Multiple choice, Short answer

About this worksheet

What students practice

Students use a particle model to explain how adding or removing thermal energy changes the pressure of a gas.
Students use a particle model to explain why evaporation lowers the temperature of a liquid.
Students analyze temperature and pressure data to make predictions.

How to use

Read the passage together and review the particle model of gases and liquids first. Students can answer Section 1 in pairs and write the final explanation on their own.

Curriculum

NGSS standard covered

MS-PS1-4

Model how adding or removing thermal energy changes particle motion, temperature and state of a substance.

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Name Date

Hot Sand, Firm Balls and Wet Sleeves: Particles at a Beach Tournament

Use a particle model to explain gas pressure and cooling by evaporation.

The ball in the sun

Read the passage and study Table 1. Then answer the questions.

A Long Day on the Sand

1Every July, the city of Harborview holds a junior beach volleyball tournament. Eighth grader Malia Fonoti and seventh grader Jasper Ndlovu volunteer at the equipment tent, where they take care of the game balls. The head official, Ms. Renata Silva, asked them to check one ball through the day, because players often say the balls feel harder in the afternoon.

2At 7:30 a.m., Jasper pumped the ball in the cool storage room until the gauge read 20 kPa. The gauge shows how much the pressure of the air inside the ball is above the pressure of the air outside. Malia weighed the ball on a kitchen scale: 270 g. During the day, they measured the ball's temperature with an infrared thermometer and assumed the air inside was at about the same temperature. They read the gauge each time without letting any air out. At the end of the day, the ball still weighed 270 g. Their readings are in Table 1.

3Scientists explain observations like these with a particle model. All matter is made of tiny particles that are always moving. Temperature is a measure of the average kinetic energy of the particles. In a gas, the particles are far apart and move freely, bumping into each other and into the walls of their container. In a liquid, the particles are close together and slide past one another.

4The tournament also sets up fans that blow a fine mist of tap water over the players' benches. Ms. Silva said the mist water is not chilled; it comes from a tank that sits in the shade, at about the same temperature as the air. To test how wet cloth cools, Malia and Jasper slipped cotton sleeves over the bulbs of two thermometers and hung them in the shade in front of a fan. One sleeve stayed dry. The other was soaked in water from the shaded tank, at 32 °C, before each test. They ran the test on a dry day, when the air was 32 °C with low humidity, and again on a humid day, when the air was also 32 °C but held much more water vapor. Their readings are in Table 2 in Section 2.