Education Technology


Cooling Down

Activity Overview

In this activity, students will collect data as a heated temperature sensor cools for three minutes, graph the cooling curve, and determine a model to fit the temperature versus time data.   

Vocabulary

  • Horizontal Asymptote
  • Vertical Translation
  • Exponential function

About the Lesson

A hot drink gradually cools off but how can the cooling process be described? In this activity, students will collect data as a heated temperature sensor cools for three minutes, graph the cooling curve, and determine a model to fit the temperature versus time data.  

Students will:

  • Collect temperature versus time data of a cooling object and graph a scatter plot.
  • Model the temperature versus time data with an exponential equation in the form y = a(b)x + c.