Thermal expansion of water in the science lab - Advantages and disadvantages of different experimental setups

Abstract

When the thermal expansion of water is discussed in school or university lessons, functional relationships are often inferred without considering measurement uncertainties. Moreover, in some learning materials, the goal of experimentation and the experimental setup do not match. This creates the wrong picture of scientific practice. In this article we compare five experimental setups with different complexity to investigate the relationship between heat and volume change of water. We take different goals of experimentation into account, as well as measurement uncertainties. We compare the different experimental setups, show advantages and limitations, and give advises for their implementation in the classroom. By doing so, we demonstrate that thermal expansion can be very well adopted for applying scientific practice in school. It is shown that the more complex the experimental setup, the more precise the quantitative significance of the functional relationship.