Model Lesson 6: Students' Investigations in Temperature and Pressure

By using the Predict, Share, Observe, and Explain (PSOE) demonstration model, teachers can incorporate some essential features of inquiry, all the while focusing on important Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Students understood the kinetic molecular theory and the relationship between pressure and thermal energy when a container has a constant volume. As a result of the PSOE instructional sequence, students worked individually and collaboratively to construct ideas about the relationship among temperature, pressure, number of molecules, and the volume of a container. The ping pong ball activity provides visual support that pressure and thermal energy are directly related when the volume is constant. Students explain that as a result of the kinetic molecular theory, adding particles of gas to a container with a constant volume increases collisions, thereby increasing the pressure within the system.