Lesson Plan: The First Law of Thermodynamics
This lesson plan includes the objectives, prerequisites, and exclusions of the lesson teaching students how to calculate the change in the internal energy of a system by comparing the heating of and work done by the system.
Objectives
Students will be able to
- distinguish between the change of the internal energy of an object due to the heating or cooling of the object and the change of the internal energy of the object due to work done on or by the object,
- use the equation in all combinations.
Prerequisites
Students should already be familiar with
- the fact that work done by a force equals the magnitude of the force multiplied by the displacement in the direction of the force,
- the fact that the internal energy of an object is the net energy of the particles of the object,
- the fact that heating of an object transfers internal energy to the object and that cooling of an object transfers internal energy from the object,
- ,
- .
Exclusions
Students will not cover
- entropy,
- molecular-level descriptions of the internal energy of an object.
