Lesson Plan: Particle Speed Distributions in Gases
This lesson plan includes the objectives, prerequisites, and exclusions of the lesson teaching students how to describe how the distribution of particle speeds in a gas and their root-mean-square speed vary with temperature.
Objectives
Students will be able to
- qualitatively describe how the shape of a Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution for an ideal gas varies with the temperature of the gas and the number of particles of the gas,
- determine the root-mean-square value of a set of values.
Prerequisites
Students should already be familiar with
- the ideal gas law.
Exclusions
Students will not cover
- quantitatively relating particle root-mean-square speed and gas temperature.
